Aethopyga

Belongs within: Nectariniidae.

Aethopyga is a genus of relatively small sunbirds found in southern Asia, in which the bifurcated ends of the tongue are joined by a basal plate.

Birds of the sun

Published 25 June 2012

The sunbirds are definitely forerunners in the tally of the world’s most brilliantly coloured birds. This family of long-billed nectar-feeders, found in tropical regions of the Old World, is often compared to the New World hummingbirds. Like hummingbirds, the males of most sunbirds shimmer with brilliant iridescent colours (the exceptions are the spiderhunters of the genus Arachnothera); the females are much more restrained, generally shades of olive-green or brown. However, though hummingbirds are committed aerialists (as befits their relationship with the swifts and nightjars), sunbirds are, as Passeriformes, more likely to feed while perched on a stem alongside their chosen flower. Also, while sunbirds are primarily nectar feeders, they also feed to a fair extent on small insects (this is also true of hummingbirds).

Sunbirds are also a rather less diverse group than hummingbirds, both in number of species and in external appearance. Because of their structural similarity, authors have differed in the number of genera recognised in the family, but one group that has generally been differentiated is the Aethopyga sunbirds of southern Asia. Aethopyga species tend to be smaller than other sunbirds, with relatively short but strongly downcurved bills. The male has the central tail-feathers elongate (Ali & Ripley 1999). Aethopyga species are also distinguished from other sunbirds by the structure of the tongue. As with other sunbirds, the tongue is elongate, with the sides curved inwards to form a double tube. Differing from others, the end of the tongue is divided into two inwardly open tubes but with a basal bifurcated plate connecting the tubes:

Cheke & Mann (2001) listed seventeen species of Aethopyga, with an eighteenth species being added by Mann (2002). Several of these species are also currently recognised as polytypic, with multiple subspecies. Though Mann’s (2002) ‘new’ species was simply derived from the elevation of previously-recognised subspecies, one entirely new species of Aethopyga, A. linaraborae from Mindanao in the Phillippines, was only described as recently as 1997. No large scale analysis of the interrelationships between Aethopyga species appears to have been published as yet, but centres of diversity are the Philippines and the Himalayas.

Systematics of Aethopyga

<==Aethopyga
    |--A. duyvenbodeiBKB15
    `--+--A. siparajaBKB15
       `--+--A. christinaeBKB15
          `--+--A. boltoniBKB15
             `--A. primigeniaBKB15

Aethopyga incertae sedis:
  A. bellaJT12
  A. caraS89
  A. dabryiS89
  A. decorosaAP21
  A. eximiaJT12
  A. flagransAP21
  A. gouldiaeJT12
  A. guimarasensisAP21
  A. ignicaudaJT12
  A. jefferyiAP21
  A. linaraboraeJT12
  A. magnificaAP21
  A. miles (Hodgson 1837) [=Cinnyris miles; incl. Nectarinia goolpariensis Royle 1839]W66
  A. mystacalisJT12
  A. nipalensisJT12
  A. pulcherrimaJT12
  A. sanguineipectus Walden 1875S89
  A. saturataJT12
  A. seheriae (Tickell 1833)S89, W66 [=Nectarinia seheriaeW66]
  A. shelleyiJT12
  A. temminckiiAP21
  A. vigorsiiAP21

*Type species of generic name indicated

References

Ali, S., & S. D. Ripley. 1999. Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan, together with those of Bangladesh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Sri Lanka 2^nd ed. vol. 10. Flowerpeckers to Buntings. Oxford University Press.

[AP21] Arlott, N., & B. van Perlo. 2021. Collins Birds of the World. William Collins.

[BKB15] Burleigh, J. G., R. T. Kimball & E. L. Braun. 2015. Building the avian tree of life using a large-scale, sparse supermatrix. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 84: 53–63.

Cheke, R. A., & C. F. Mann. 2001. Sunbirds: A Guide to the Sunbirds, Flowerpeckers, Spiderhunters and Sugarbirds of the World. A & C Black Publishers.

[JT12] Jetz, W., G. H. Thomas, J. B. Joy, K. Hartmann & A. Ø. Mooers. 2012. The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491: 444–448.

Mann, C. F. 2002. Systematic notes on Asian birds. 28. Taxonomic comments on some south and south-east Asian members of the family Nectariniidae. Zool. Verh. Leiden 340: 179–189.

[S89] Salvadori, T. 1889. Viaggio di Leonardo Fea nella Birmania e nelle regioni vicine. XIX.—Uccelli raccolti nei Monti Carin a nord-est di Tounghoo, nel Pegù presso Rangoon e Tounghoo e nel Tenasserim presso Malewoon. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Serie 2^a, 7: 369–438.

[W66] Walden, A. 1866. Notes on birds collected in Tennasserim and in the Andaman Islands. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1866: 537–556.