Phylogenetic placement: Passeri: Corvides: Malaconotoidea

Distribution: endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa

Number of extant genera: 8 (or 9)

Number of extant species: ~50

References

Aggerbeck M, Fjeldså J, Christidis L, Fabre PH, and Jønsson KA (2014) Resolving deep lineage divergences in core corvoid passerine birds supports a proto-Papuan island origin, Mol. Pylogenet. Evol. 70, 272-285. (abstract) 

Fuchs J, Bowie RCK, Fjeldså J, and Pasquet E (2004), Phylogenetic relationships of the African bush-shrikes and helmet-shrikes (Passeriformes: Malaconotidae), Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 33, 428-439. (abstract)

Fuchs J, Irestedt M, Fjeldså J, Couloux A, Pasquet E, and Bowie RCK (2012), Molecular phylogeny of African bush-shrikes and allies: Tracing the biogeographic history of an explosive radiation of corvoid birds, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 64, 93-105. (abstract)

Jønsson KA, Fabre PH, Kennedy JD, Holt BG, Borregaard MK, Rahbek C, and Fjeldså J (2016), A supermatrix phylogeny of corvoid passerine birds (Aves: Corvides), Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 94, 87-94. (abstract)

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. (pdf)  

Moyle RG, Oliveros CH, Andersen MJ, Hosner PA, Benz BW, Manthey JD, Travers SL, Brown RM, and Faircloth BC (2016) Tectonic collision and uplift of Wallacea triggered the global songbird radiation, Nature Comm. 7, e:12709. (free pdf) 

Nguembock B, Fjeldså J, Couloux A, and Pasquet E (2008), Phylogeny of Laniarius: Molecular data reveal L. liberatus synonymous with  L. erlangeri and “plumage coloration” as unreliable morphological characters for defining species and species groups, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 48, 396-407. (abstract)

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, PNAS 116, 7915-25. (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)