Phylogenetic placement: Passeri: Passerides: Sylviida: Locustelloidea

Distribution: endemic to Madagascar

Number of extant genera: ~8

Number of extant species: ~12

References

Alström P, Olsson U, and Lei F (2013), A review of the recent advances in the systematics of the avian superfamily Sylioidea, Avian Res 4, 99-131. (free pdf)

Barker FK, Barrowclough GF, and Groth JG (2002), A phylogenetic hypothesis for passerine birds: taxonomic and biogeographic implications of an analysis of nuclear DNA sequence data, Proc. R. Soc. B 269, 295-308 (abstract)

Barker FK, Cibois A, Schikler P, Feinstein J, and Cracraft J (2004), Phylogeny and diversification of the largest avian radiation, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 101, 11040-45. (pdf)

Beresford P, Barker FK, Ryan PG, and Crowe TM (2005) African endemics span the tree of songbirds (Passeri): molecular systematics of several evolutionary enigmas, Proc. R. Soc. B 272, 849-858. (abstract)

Cibois A, David N, Gregory SMS, and Pasquet E (2010), Bernieridae (Aves: Passeriformes): a family-group name for the Malagasy sylvioid radiation, Zootaxa 2554, 65-68. (abstract)

Ericson PGP, Klopfstein S, Irestedt M, Nguyen JMT, and Nylander JAA (2014), Dating the diversification of the major lineages of Passeriformes (Aves), BMC Ecol. Evol. 14, e:8. (free pdf)

Kuhl H, Frankl-Vilches C, Bakker A, Mayr G, Nikolaus G, Boerno ST, Klages S, Timmermann B, and Gahr M (2021), An unbiased molecular approach using 3'UTRs resolves the avian family-level tree of life, Mol. Biol. Evol. 38, 108-127. (free pdf)  

Oliveros CH, Field DJ, Ksepka DT, Barker KF, Aleixo A, Andersen MJ, Alström P, Benz BW, Braun EL, Braun MJ, Bravo GA, Brumfield RT, Chesser RT, Claramunt S, Cracraft J, Cuervo AM, Derryberry EP, Glenn TC, Harvey MG, Hosner PA, Joseph L, Kimball RT, Mack AL, Miskelly CM, Peterson AT, Robbins MB, Sheldon FH, Silveira LF, Smith BT, White ND, Moyle RG, and Faircloth BC (2019), Earth history and the passerine superradiation, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 116, 7915-25. (pdf)

Younger JL, Block NL, Raherilalao MJ, Maddox JD, Wacker KS, Kyriazis CC, Goodman SM, and Reddy S (2019), Diversification of a cryptic radiation, a closer look at Madagascar's recently recognized bird family, bioRxiv [preprint] (pdf)

Stiller J, Feng S, Chowdhury AA, Rivas-González I, Duchêne DA, Fang Q, Deng Y, Kozlov A, Stamatakis A, Claramunt S, Nguyen JMT, Ho SYW, Faircloth BC, Haag J, Houde P, Cracraft J, Balaban M, Mai U, Chen G, Gao R, Zhou C, Xie Y, Huang Z, Cao Z, Yan Z, Ogilvie HA, Nakhleh L, Lindow B, Morel B, Fjeldså J, Hosner PA, da Fonseca RR, Petersen B, Tobias JA, Székely T, Kennedy JD, Reeve AH, Liker A, Stervander M, Antunes A, Tietze DT, Bertelsen M, Lei F, Rahbek C, Graves GR, Schierup MH, Warnow T, Braun EL, Gilbert MTP, Jarvis ED, Mirarab S, and Zhang G (2024), Complexity of avian evolution revealed by family-level genomes, Nature (preview pdf)