Phylum Chordata Rank Family | Infraorder Passerida Scientific name Sylviidae Higher classification Sylvioidea Order Passerine | |
 | ||
Lower classifications Typical warbler, Eurasian blackcap, Paradoxornis, Vinous‑throated parrotbill | ||
Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that was part of an assemblage known as the Old World warblers. The family was a wastebin taxon with over 400 species of bird in over 70 genera. Advances in classification, particularly helped with molecular data, have led to the splitting out of several new families from within this group. Today the smaller family Sylviidae includes the typical warblers in the genus Sylvia, the parrotbills of Asia (formerly a separate family Paradoxornithidae), a number of babblers formerly placed within the family Timaliidae (which is being split) and the wrentit, a North American bird that has been a longstanding taxonomic mystery.
Contents
There is now evidence that these Sylvia "warblers" are more closely related to babblers Timaliidae, and thus these birds are better referred to as Sylvia babblers, or just sylvids.
Ashy tailorbird
Taxonomy
The scientific name Sylviidae was coined by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in 1820.
A molecular phylogenetic study using mitochondrial DNA sequence data published in 2011 found that the species in the genus Sylvia formed two distinct clades. Based on these results, the ornithologists Edward Dickinson and Leslie Christidis in the fourth edition of Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, chose to split the genus and moved most of the species into a resurrected genus Curruca retaining only the Eurasian blackcap and the garden warbler in Sylvia. In an additional change they moved the African hill babbler and Dohrn's thrush-babbler into Sylvia. The split was not made by the British Ornithologists' Union on the grounds that "a split into two genera would unnecessarily destabilize nomenclature and results in only a minor increase in phylogenetic information content."
Description
Sylviids are small to medium-sized passerine birds. The bill is generally thin and pointed with bristles at the base. Sylviids have a slender shape and an inconspicuous and mostly plain plumage. The wings have ten primaries, which are rounded and short in non-migratory species.
Most species occur in Asia, and to a lesser extent in Africa. A few range into Europe; one species, the wrentit, occurs on the west coast of North America.
List of genera
