Acridotheres

Acridotheres is a genus of starlings, the "typical" mynas, which are tropical members of the family Sturnidae.

Acridotheres
Common myna, Acridotheres tristis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Sturnidae
Genus: Acridotheres
Vieillot, 1816
Species

10; see text

Distribution

This genus has representatives in tropical southern Asia from Iran east to southern China and Indonesia. Two species have been introduced widely elsewhere. The common myna has been introduced to South Africa, Israel, Hawaii, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and the crested myna to the Vancouver region of British Columbia.

Morphology

The Acridotheres mynas are generally dark or dull birds with and fluted calls like most starlings; the sexes are similar. They walk and hop, and may share adaptations along with the Sturnus starlings that have modifications to the skull and its muscles for open bill probing or prying.[1] They resemble the hill mynas (Gracula) with which they often co-occur, in having large white or buff wing patches which are obvious in flight and in some also naked areas on the head, but differ in that only the head plumage is glossy, and the underparts tend to be paler. The naked head patches are different in arrangement. Acridotheres mynas are also much more terrestrial than Gracula.

Several species have frontal crests which become covered with pollen when the birds take nectar from flowers, and may play a role in pollination.

Behaviour

They have bowing courtship displays, whereas Gracula has no visual display. They lay unmarked pale blue eggs.

Like most starlings, the Acridotheres mynas are fairly omnivorous, eating fruit, nectar and insects.

Systematics

The genus Acridotheres was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816.[2] The type species was subsequently designated as the common myna.[3] The name Acridotheres combines the Ancient Greek words akridos "locust" and -thēras "-hunter".[4]

Despite being both called "mynas", the Acridotheres mynas are closer related to a group of mainly terrestrial starlings from Eurasia, such as the common starling, and also African ones like the Lamprotornis glossy-starlings. Among these, they are among the larger and duller species; they seem to be one of the major groups to evolve most recently. Apparently, they all arose from ancestors which arrived from Central Asia and adapted to more humid conditions in the Tropics. They presumably were isolated in about their current range when the evolutionary radiation to which they belonged - including the wattled starling and the Sturnia species - was fragmented by desertification at the start of the Early Pliocene, as Earth turned towards the last ice age 5 million years ago.

Species
 
 
 
 
 

A. cinereus

 
 
 

A. fuscus

 
 

A. javanicus

 
 
 
 
 

A. albocinctus

 
 
 

A. cristatellus

 
 

A. grandis

 
 
 
 
 
 

A. melanopterus

 
 

A. burmannicus

 
 
 
 
 

A. ginginianus

 
 

A. tristis

 
 
 
Relationship within the genus Acridotheres[1]

The genus contains 10 species:[5]

Two other species, the red-billed starling (Spodiopsar sericeus) and the white-cheeked starling (Spodiopsar cineraceus), are probably basal in the group and might even be closer to Sturnia. The relationships of the white-faced starling (Sturornis albofrontatus) are more unclear, but it is generally not held to be close to the present genus.

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gollark: 🐝 this, what is *waitpid* doing?
gollark: Aha, the mmaping mmapized.

References
  1. Zuccon, D.; Pasquet, E.; Ericson, P. G. P. (2008). "Phylogenetic relationships among Palearctic–Oriental starlings and mynas (genera Sturnus and Acridotheres : Sturnidae)" (PDF). Zoologica Scripta. 37: 469–481. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2008.00339.x.
  2. Vieillot, Louis Jean Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Elementaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 42.
  3. Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1962). Check-list of birds of the world. Volume 15. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 112.
  4. Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
  5. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2018). "Nuthatches, Wallcreeper, treecreepers, mockingbirds, starlings, oxpeckers". World Bird List Version 8.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
  • Feare, Chris & Craig, Adrian (1999): Starlings and Mynas. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-7136-3961-X
  • Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol, Inskipp, Tim & Byers, Clive (1999): Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. ISBN 0-691-04910-6
  • Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). Zool. Scripta 35(2): 149–186. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2006.00221.x (HTML abstract)
  • Zuccon, Dario; Cibois, Anne; Pasquet, Eric & Ericson, Per G.P. (2006): Nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data reveal the major lineages of starlings, mynas and related taxa. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 41(2): 333–344. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.05.007 (HTML abstract)
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