Phylogenetic placement: Passeri: Passerides: Picathartoidea

Distribution: tropical Africa

Number of extant genera: 1

Number of extant species: 2

References

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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. Lond. B 272, 849-858. (abstract)

Irestedt M, and Ohlson JI (2008), The division of the major songbird radiation into Passerida and 'core Corvoidea' (Aves: Passeriformes) – the species tree vs. gene trees, Zool. Scr. 37, 305-313. (abstract)

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Treplin S, and Tiedemann R (2007), Specific chicken repeat 1 (CR1) retrotransposon insertion suggests phylogenetic affinity of rockfowls (genus Picathartes) to crows and ravens (Corvidae), Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 43, 328-337. (abstract)

Treplin S, Siegert R, Bleidorn C, Thompson HS, Fotso R, and Tiedemann R (2008), Molecular phylogeny of songbirds (Aves: Passeriformes) and the relative utility of common nuclear marker loci, Cladistics 24, 328-349. (pdf)

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