Acridotheres Tristis00

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

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. 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. The type species was subsequently designated as the common myna. The name ''Acridotheres'' combines the Ancient Greek words ''akridos'' "locust" and ''-thēras'' "-hunter".

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

The genus contains 10 species:

* Great myna, ''Acridotheres grandis''
* Crested myna, ''Acridotheres cristatellus''
* Javan myna, ''Acridotheres javanicus''
* Pale-bellied myna, ''Acridotheres cinereus''
* Jungle myna, ''Acridotheres fuscus''
* Collared myna, ''Acridotheres albocinctus''
* Bank myna, ''Acridotheres ginginianus''
* Common myna, ''Acridotheres tristis''
* Black-winged starling, ''Acridotheres melanopterus''
* Vinous-breasted starling, ''Acridotheres burmannicus''

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.

References

* 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..
* Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). '' Zool. Scripta'' 35(2): 149–186. (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. (HTML abstract)

{{Taxonbar, from=Q136358

Bird genera
Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot