• Phylogenetic placement: Passeri: Passerides: Passerida: Dicaeoidea
• Distribution: Africa, Eurasia, Wallacea, Philippines, New Guinea and Australia
• Number of extant genera: 16 (to be revised)
• Number of extant species: 151

Traditional genus-level classification of extant Nectariniidae following the AviList checklist v2025. (link) The number of subspecies is given in parentheses. Many genera (represented in quotation marks) proved to be non-monophyletic (Nicolaï et al., 2024). However, the monophyly of the disputed genus Arachnothera has been proven (according to Campillo et al., 2018; contra Nicolaï et al., 2024). Several species (marked in blue letters) have not been studied yet. 

Historical biogeography

Both pan- and crown-Nectariniidae must have originated in the Indomalayan region, because this is the region where the sister group, the flowerpeckers (Dicaeidae), and the three basal nectariniid clades (highlighted in blue, green and yellow, respectively) are still found today (Bowie, 2003). The fourth clade (highlighted in red) represents an Afrotropical offshoot, with at least one lineage, comprising asiaticus, jugularis, solaris and probably other species of the polyphyletic genus "Cinnyris", having back-colonized the Oriental region. For a better understanding of the historical biogeography of this clade, it will be essential to elucidate the phylogenetic relationships of "Cinnyris" species not previously sampled. 

Within the Afrotropical clade, Anabathmis newtonii from São Tomé Island and Anabathmis hartlaubii from Príncipe Island were not recovered as sister species. This means that the two islands in the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa, which are lying only ~170 km apart, must have been colonised independently. 

Preliminary reclassification of Nectariniidae

Jimmy Gaudin kindly sent me a proposal, how the family might be reclassified in the future. In his revised system he did not take into account divergence times, but rather a combination of the length of the branches and the phenology of the species. It remains to be seen, which suggestions will be followed iin the forthcoming AviList checklist v2026. 

References 

Bowie RCK (2003), Birds, molecules, and evolutionary patterns among Africa‘s islands in the sky, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Town, Cape Town. 370 pp. (pdf)

Bowie RCK, Fjeldså J, Hackett SJ, and Crowe TM (2004), Systematics and biogeography of double-collared sunbirds from the Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania, Auk 121, 660-681. (free pdf)

Bowie RCK, Fjeldså J, Kiure J, and Kristensen JB (2016), A new member of the greater double-collared sunbird complex (Passeriformes: Nectariniidae) from the Eastern Arc Mountains of Africa, Zootaxa 4175, 23-42. (abstract) 

Campillo LC, Oliveros CH, Sheldon FH, and Moyle RG (2018), Genomic data resolve gene tree discordance in spiderhunters (Nectariniidae: Arachnothera), Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 120, 151-157. (abstract) 

Delacour J (1944), A revision of the family Nectariniidae (sunbirds), Zoologica 29, 17-38. (pdf)

Gregory SMS, and Dickinson EC (2012), An assessment of three little-noticed papers on avian nomenclature by G.N. Kashin during 1978-1982, Zootaxa 3340, 44-58. (abstract)

Hosner PA, Nýari ÁS, and Moyle RG (2013), Water barriers and intra-island isolation contribute to the diversification in the insular Aethopyga sunbirds (Aves: Nectariniidae), J. Biogeogr. 40, 1094-1106. (abstract)

Irwin MPS (1999), The genus Nectarinia and the evolution and diversification of sunbirds: an Afrotropical perspective, Honeyguide 45, 45-58. (no abstract available)

Jønsson KA, and Fjeldså J (2006), A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri), Zool. Scr. 35, 149-186. (abstract)

Lauron EJ, Loiseau C, Bowie RCK, Spicer GS, Smith TB, Melo M, and Sehgal RNM (2015), Coevolutionary patterns and diversification of avian malaria parasites in African sunbirds (Family Nectariniidae), Parasitology 142, 635-647. (abstract) 

Lohman DJ, Ingram KK, Prawiradilaga DM, Winker K, Sheldon FH, Moyle RG, Ng PKL, Ong PS, Wang LK, Braile TM, Astuti D, and Meier R (2010), Cryptic genetic diversity in “widespread” Southeast Asian bird species suggests that Philippine avian endemism is gravely underestimated, Biol. Conserv. 143, 1885-90. (abstract)

Mann C, and Cheke RA (2014), The sunbird genera Anthodiaeta and Hedydipna revisited, Bull. B.O.C. 134, 159-160. (pdf)

Marcaigh FÓ, Kelly DJ, O’Connell, DP, Analuddin K, Karya A, McCloughan J, Tolan E, Lawless N, and Marples NM (2023), Small islands and large biogeographic barriers have driven contrasting speciation patterns in Indo-Pacific sunbirds (Aves: Nectariniidae), Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 198, 72-92. (free pdf)

Moyle RG, Taylor SS, Oliveros CH, Lim HC, Haines CL, Rahman MA, and Sheldon FH (2011), Diversification of an endemic Southeast Asian genus: Phylogenetic relationships of the spiderhunters (Nectariniidae: Arachnothera), Auk 128, 777-788. (free pdf)

Nicolaï MPJ, van Hecke B, Rogalla S, Debruyn G, Bowie RCK, Matzke NJ, Hackett SJ, D’Alba L, and Shawkey MD (2024), The evolution of multiple color mechanisms is correlated with diversification in sunbirds (Nectariniidae), Syst. Biol. 73, 343-354. [tree file provided in: supplementary_data_5_zip: Sunbirds_New_Complete.tre] (free pdf)

Nyári ÁS, Peterson AT, Rice NH, and Moyle RG (2009), Phylogenetic relationships of flowerpeckers (Aves: Dicaeidae): Novel insights into the evolution of a tropical passerine clade, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 53, 613-619. (abstract)

Rahman MA, Gawin DFA, and Moritz C (2010), Patterns of genetic variation in the Little Spiderhunter (Arachnothera longirostra) in Southeast Asia, Raffles Bull. Zool. 58, 381-390. (pdf)

Smith TB, Thomassen HA, Freedman AH, Sehgal RNM, Buermann W, Saatchi S, Pollinger J, Milá B, Pires D, Valkiūnas G, and Wayne RK (2011), Patterns of divergence in the olive sunbird Cyanomitra olivacea (Aves: Nectariniidae) across the African rainforest-savanna ecotone, Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 103, 821-835. (abstract)

Warren BH, Bermingham E, Bowie RCK, Prys-Jones RP, and Thébaut C (2003), Molecular phylogeography reveals island colonization history and diversification of western Indian Ocean sunbirds (Nectarinia: Nectariniidae), Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 29, 67-85. (abstract)