Pardalotes & Sunbirds

Discussion 2 posts |  Only members can post. Join?

About Pardalotes & Sunbirds

Objectives of the group - To present an interesting, varied collection of high quality bird images belonging to the relevant family as described below.

Pardalotes or peep-wrens are a family, Pardalotidae, of very small, brightly coloured birds native to Australia, with short tails, strong legs, and stubby blunt beaks. This family is composed of four species in one genus, Pardalotus, and several subspecies. The name derives from a Greek word meaning "spotted". The family once contained several other species now split into the family Acanthizidae.

Pardalotes spend most of their time high in the outer foliage of trees, feeding on insects, spiders, and above all lerps (a type of sap sucking insect). Their role in controlling lerp infestations in the eucalyptus forests of Australia may be significant. They generally live in pairs or small family groups but sometimes come together into flocks after breeding.

Pardalotes are seasonal breeders in temperate areas of Australia but may breed year round in warmer areas. They are monogamous breeders, and both partners share nest construction, incubation and chick rearing duties. All four species nest in deep horizontal tunnels drilled into banks of earth. Externally about the size of a mouse-hole, they can be very deep, at a metre or more. Some species also nest in tree hollows. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardalote

The Pardalotidae is a large and diverse passerine bird family. Pardalotidae includes the pardalotes, scrubwrens, thornbills, gerygones and allies. It is the second-largest family of birds in Australasia (after the honeyeaters).

All members are small to medium in size; many are very small. Most are drab, inconspicuous, and rather difficult to identify in the field. The four pardalotes are a conspicuous exception: despite a broadly similar lifestyle, they are very brightly coloured.

All members of the group are primarily insectivorous, have 10 primaries (the tenth is vestigial in the pardalotes) and 9 secondaries (most having a vestigal tenth secondary).
The family originated in Australasia and now includes about 70 species in 15 or 16 genera. Nearly all are confined to Australia (48 species) or New Guinea (about 20 species, including 6 found in both Australia and New Guinea). Only the gerygones extend further afield, with representatives in South-east Asia, New Zealand, and islands of the South Pacific.

One species, the Lord Howe Gerygone (Gerygone insularis), is extinct; and 25 taxa in 17 species are considered endangered, three of them critically so. The primary threats are land clearing, overgrazing, degredation and fragmentation of habitat, and changing fire regimes.

The taxonomy of the Pardalotidae is complex and classifications have changed a great deal over the years. Recent microbiological work has made it clear that it is part of the Australasian corvid lineage, and most closely related to the honeyeaters and the wrens, all three families being regarded as part of the superfamily Meliphagoidea.

At various times the Pardalotidae have been classified as Old World warblers, Old World babblers, and Old World flycatchers. The pardalotes themselves have been placed alone in their own family and grouped with the flowerpeckers. DNA studies suggest that the pardalotes may diverge sufficiently from the others in the group to justify regarding them as a separate family, in which case the remaining genera would be placed in the family Acanthizidae.

Most species in the group are aboreal; they search busily through the upper foliage searching for insects and other small creatures. Several, generally the larger ones, feed on or near the ground, but are nevertheless rarely far from cover.

◦FAMILY PARDALOTIDAE
◦Subfamily Pardalotinae: pardalotes
◦Spotted Pardalote, Pardalotus punctatus
◦Forty-spotted Pardalote, Pardalotus quadragintus
◦Red-browed Pardalote, Pardalotus rubricatus
◦Striated Pardalote, Pardalotus striatus
◦Subfamily Dasyornithidar
◦Eastern Bristlebird, Dasyornis brachypterus
◦Rufous Bristlebird, Dasyornis broadbenti
◦Western Bristlebird, Dasyornis longirostris
◦Pilotbird, Pcynoptilus floccosus
◦Subfamily Acanthizinae
◦Rockwarbler, Origma solitaria
◦Fernwren, Oreoscopus gutturalis
◦Yellow-throated Scrubwren, Sericornis citreogularis
◦White-browed Scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis
◦Tasmanian Scrubwren, Sericornis humilis
◦Atherton Scrubwren, Sericornis keri
◦Large-billed Scrubwren, Sericornis magnirostris
◦Tropical Scrubwren, Sericornis beccarii
◦Scrubtit, Acanthornis magnus
◦Chestnut-rumped Heathwren, Hylacola pyrrhopygia
◦Shy Heathwren or Shy Hylacola, Hylacola cauta
◦Striated Fieldwren, Calamanthus fuliginosus
◦Rufous Fieldwren, Calamanthus campestris
◦Redthroat, Pyrrholaemus brunneus
◦Speckled Warbler, Chthonicola sagittata
◦Weebill, Smicrornis brevirostris
◦Brown Gerygone, Gerygone mouki
◦Grey Warbler, Gerygone igata
◦Chatham Island Warbler, Gerygone albofrontata
◦Norfolk Island Gerygone, Gerygone modesta
◦Dusky Gerygone, Gerygone tenebrosa
◦Mangrove Gerygone, Gerygone levigaster
◦Western Gerygone, Gerygone fusca
◦Lord Howe Gerygone, Gerygone insularis (extinct)
◦Large-billed Gerygone, Gerygone magnirostris
◦Green-backed Gerygone, Gerygone chloronotus
◦Fairy Gerygone, Gerygone palpebrosa
◦White-throated Gerygone, Gerygone olivacea
◦Mountain Thornbill, Acanthiza katherina
◦Brown Thornbill, Acanthiza pusilla
◦Inland Thornbill, Acanthiza apicalis
◦Tasmanian Thornbill, Acanthiza ewingii
◦Chestnut-rumped Thornbill, Acanthiza uropygialis
◦Slaty-backed Thornbill, Acanthiza robustirostris
◦Western Thornbill, Acanthiza inornata
◦Buff-rumped Thornbill, Acanthiza reguloides
◦Slender-billed Thornbill, Acanthiza iredalei
◦Yellow-rumped Thornbill, Acanthiza chrysorrhoa
◦Yellow Thornbill, Acanthiza nana
◦Striated Thornbill, Acanthiza lineata
◦Southern Whiteface, Aphelocephala leucopsis
◦Chestnut-breasted Whiteface, Aphelocephala pectoralis
◦Banded Whiteface, Aphelocephala nignicincta
bird.net.au/bird/index.php?title=Pardalotidae

Retrieved from "http://bird.net.au/bird/index.php?title=Pardalotidae"
This page has been accessed 1,637 times. This page was last modified on 17 May 2007, at 00:39. Content is available under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Note on the Taxonomy
As noted above, following the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy (1990) the Acanthizidae were previously regarded as subfamily Acanthizinae within the Pardalotidae family. However, current revisions (Christidis & Boles, 1994; Schodde & Mason 1999) don't support this arrangement. The Dasyornithidae (which include the bristlebirds) are variously seen either as subfamily Dasyornithinae within the Acanthizidae or Pardalotidae family or as own family (Schodde & Mason 1999).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthizidae
However we are happy to accept them here anyway!

Australian Chats are now included in the family Meliphagidae, see - www.flickr.com/groups/honeyeaters_flycatchers_thrushes/

The Sunbirds and spiderhunters are a family, Nectariniidae, of very small passerine birds. There are 132 species in 15 genera. The family is distributed throughout Africa, southern Asia and just reaches northern Australia. Most sunbirds feed largely on nectar, but also take insects and spiders, especially when feeding young. Flower tubes that bar access to nectar because of their shape, are simply punctured at the base near the nectaries. Fruit is also part of the diet of some species. Their flight is fast and direct on their short wings.

The Sunbirds have counterparts in two very distantly related groups: the hummingbirds of the Americas and the honeyeaters of Australia. The resemblances are due to convergent evolution brought about by a similar nectar-feeding lifestyle. Some sunbird species can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, but usually perch to feed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbirds