Melampitta Schlegel 1871
Creators: name: Schoddei, Richard
name: Christidis, Les
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Aves
Passeriformes
Corcoracidae
Melampitta

description: 5. Melampitta
After Mayr (1931) demonstrated that its syringeal morphology was oscine, the ground-living Melampitta group of montane New Guinea has been included among the Old World babblers (Timaliidae) or Australo-Papuan logrunners, quail-thrushes and whipbirds (Orthonychidae sensu lato) for much of the later 20 th century (Mayr 1941; Deignan 1964; Rand & Gilliard 1967; Wolters 1980a; Beehler & Finch 1985; Beehler et al. 1986). DNA-DNA hybridization (Sibley & Ahlquist 1987; Sibley & Monroe 1990) then placed it sister to the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae), to which Dickinson (2003) responded by treating it as incertae sedis and Boles (2007b) by returning it to the Australo-Papuan quail-thrushes and whipbirds. Subsequent multi-locus DNA sequence studies (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006; Irestedt et al. 2008; Jønsson et al. 2011; Aggerbeck et al. 2014) have consistently recovered Melampitta sister to members of a cluster of families that include not only the birds-of-paradise, but also Afro-Asian drongos (Dicruridae), Australasian fantails and monarchs (Rhipiduridae, Monarchidae), and Australian mudnesters (Corcoracidae). Relationships to the birds-of-paradise and Australian mudnesters have the strongest support (Jønsson et al. l.c.: 1 mtDNA region and 4 nuclear loci, 72 corvoid taxa across all families; Aggerbeck et al. l.c.: 22 loci, 43 corvoid genera across all families).
Apart from the Australian mudnesters (Corcoracidae) and, subtly, the birds-of-paradise, the Melampitta group bears negligible similarity to any of these tree-living families in form or niche. Its two species, lugubris and gigantea, are litter-foragers of the forest floor. They have large feet and toes, very short rounded wings with uniquely recurved and emarginated primaries, and (lugubris) shortened sternum with much reduced keel―all consistent with terrestriality. Unlike the respective Australian mudnesters or birds-of-paradise, moreover, they appear to be neither communal nor polygynous (Coates 1990). Both species share a tuft of short plush feathering over frons and forehead that could be homologous to such tufts found in many genera of birds-of-paradise (e.g. Semioptera, Paradisaea, Parotia, Astrapia, Cicinnurus). Yet, although sharing a shallowly configured temporal region with Manucodia, Melampitta lugubris has a fully perforate nasal cavity, without any of the heavy ossification found in birds-of-paradise (Bock 1963). It also builds a bulky, bryophyte-draped domed nest near the ground (Frith & Frith 1990), unlike the coarse arboreal cups of twigs and leaves of birds-of-paradise or dish-shaped mud nests of the Corcoracidae. For gigantea, Diamond (1983) nevertheless recorded the nest as a “large suspended basket of vines”; no mention was made of a dome or side-entrance. Neonatal young of M. lugubris hatch downy, not naked as in birds-of-paradise, and are fed by direct feeding, not regurgitation (Frith & Frith 1990; Frith & Beehler 1998: 135, 138). Combined DNA sequence, morphological and behavioural evidence thus indicate that Melampitta, although apparently sister to the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae) and perhaps the Australian mudnesters (Corcoracidae), is deeply divergent. Accordingly it is ranked at family level here.
description: Published as part of Schoddei, Richard & Christidis, Les, 2014, Relicts from Tertiary Australasia: undescribed families and subfamilies of songbirds (Passeriformes) and their zoogeographic signal, pp. 501-522 in Zootaxa 3786 (5) on pages 511-512, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3786.5.1, http://zenodo.org/record/4913561