Cuculiformes

The Cuculiformes are represented by a single family, the Cuculidae (cuckoos). The phylogeny is not well founded, and the divergence times are still obscure:

Genus-level timetree of extant Cuculidae, with the distribution of each taxon being indicated by the colour-code used throughout this website (Distribution code). Subfamily interrelations are based on Sorenson & Payne (2005), Prum et al. (2015), and Wang et al. (2016).


References

Hughes J M (2006), Phylogeny of the cuckoo genus Coccyzus (Aves: Cuculidae): A test of monophyly, Syst. Biodiv. 4, 483-488. (abstract)

Johnson KP, Goodman SM, and Lanyon SM (2000), A phylogenetic study of the Malagasy Couas with insights into cuckoo relationships, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 14, 436-444.  (pdf)

Nordén KK, Cooney CR, Babarovic F, and Stoddard MC (2023), Historical contingency influences the diversity of feather nanostructures in cuckoos, bioRxiv . (pdf)

Prum RO, Berv JS, Dornburg A, Field DJ, Townsend JP, Lemmon EM, and Lemmon AR (2015), A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing, Nature 526, 569-57. (abstract)

Qu J, Cong J, Guo C, Hou J, and Shi B (2017), Complete mitochondrial genome of the Greater Coucal, Centropus sinensis (Aves: Cuculiformes), Mitochondrial DNA Part A 28, 311-312. (abstract)

Sorenson MD, and Payne RB (2005), Molecular systematics: cuckoo phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences in "The Cuckoos", pp. 68-94 (R.B. Payne, ed.). Oxford University Press, Oxford. (abstract)

Tian Y, Xu J, Dou L, Zheng A, Qiao L, Xie j, and Zhang X (2021), The complete mitochondrial genome of the Indian Cuckoo Cuculus micropterus (Aves: Cuculiformes), Mitochondrial DNA Part B 6, 2556-58. (pdf)

Wang N, Liang B, Huo J, and Liang W (2016), The complete mitochondrial genome and the phylogenetic position of the Lesser Cuckoo, Cuculus poliocephalus (Aves: Cuculiformes), Mitochondrial DNA Part A 27, 4409-10. (abstract)

Photos