''Horornis'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of small

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 500 ...

s ("

warbler Various Passeriformes (perching birds) are commonly referred to as warblers. They are not necessarily closely related to one another, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal, and insectivorous. Sylvioid warblers Th ...

s") which make up the core of the newly recognized

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Cettiidae Cettiidae is a newly validated family of small insectivorous songbirds ("warblers"), formerly placed in the Old World warbler "wastebin" assemblage. It contains the typical bush warblers (''Cettia'') and their relatives. As a common name, cetti ...

. They were formerly placed in the

Sylviidae Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that includes the typical warblers and a number of babblers formerly placed within the Old World babbler family. They are found in Eurasia and Africa. Taxonomy and systematics The scientific name Sylviid ...

, which at that time was a

wastebin taxon Wastebasket taxon (also called a wastebin taxon, dustbin taxon or catch-all taxon) is a term used by some taxonomists to refer to a taxon that has the sole purpose of classifying organisms that do not fit anywhere else. They are typically defined ...

for the warbler-like

Sylvioidea Sylvioidea is a superfamily of passerine birds, one of at least three major clades within the Passerida along with the Muscicapoidea and Passeroidea. It contains about 1300 species including the Old World warblers, Old World babblers, swallows, ...

. The range of this genus occurs from southeast Asia throughout the western

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The most recently described species is the

Bougainville bush warbler The Bougainville bush warbler or odedi (''Horornis haddeni'') is a bird species initially placed in the "Old World warbler" assemblage, but nowadays moved with its congeners to the new cettiid warbler family. It was described as new to science ...

(''Horornis haddeni'') from

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area is ...

. These typical bush warblers share the lifestyle and related

adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...

s and

apomorph In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

ies with ''

Bradypterus ''Bradypterus'' is a genus of small insectivorous songbirds ("warblers") in the newly recognized grass warbler family (Locustellidae). They were formerly placed in the Sylviidae, which at that time was a wastebin taxon for the warbler-like Syl ...

'', the other genus called bush warblers. However, ''Bradypterus'' is related to the grass warblers of '' Locustella'' and '' Megalurus'' and is more distant from ''Cettia''. Both "bush warbler" genera are smallish birds well adapted to climbing among

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

bery. They are markedly long-tailed birds, at first glance somewhat reminiscent of

wren Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly ...

s. These are quite terrestrial birds, which live in densely vegetated

habitats In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

such as thick forest and reedbeds. They will walk away from disturbance rather than flush. The

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

similarities and skulking lifestyle makes these birds hard to see and identify. These bush warblers tend towards rich or greyish browns above and buffish or light grey tones below. They have little patterning apart from the ubiquitous

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

. Altogether, they appear much like the plainer species among '' Acrocephalus'' marsh warblers in coloration. Megalurid bush warblers tend to be somewhat slimmer and have a very long and pointed tail, but are otherwise very similar.

Species

This genus has been split from the genus ''

Cettia ''Cettia'' is a genus of small insectivorous songbirds (" warblers") which make up the core of the newly recognized family Cettiidae. They were formerly placed in the Sylviidae, which at that time was a wastebin taxon for the warbler-like Sylv ...

''.

Cetti's warbler Cetti's warbler (''Cettia cetti'') is a small, brown bush-warbler which breeds in southern and central Europe, northwest Africa and the east Palearctic as far as Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan. The sexes are alike. The bird is named after t ...

(''C. cetti''), the previous

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

, seems close to the genus ''

Tesia The tesias are a genus, ''Tesia'', of Old World warbler. Though once included in the large family Sylviidae, more recent research placed it within a new family, Cettiidae. The four species inhabit undergrowth of montane forest in South and South ...

'' from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

and neighboring regions. Birds in the genus ''Horornis'', such as the famous ''uguisu'' (鶯,

Japanese bush warbler The Japanese bush warbler (''Horornis diphone''), known in Japanese as ''uguisu'' (鶯), is an Asian passerine bird more often heard than seen. Its distinctive breeding song can be heard throughout much of Japan from the start of spring. Descri ...

, ''H. diphone'') and the

brown-flanked bush warbler The brown-flanked bush warbler (''Horornis fortipes''), also known as the brownish-flanked bush warbler, is a species of bush-warbler of the family Cettiidae. It was formerly included in the "Old World warbler" assemblage. It is found in South ...

(''H. fortipes'') belong to a group that might include the aberrant broad-billed warbler (''Tickellia hodgsoni''). This latter species differs wildly in its gaudy colors but in habitus is a typical "bush warbler".Alström ''et al.'' (2006), Fuchs ''et al.'' (2006)

Footnotes

References

* Alström, P.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Olsson, U. & Sundberg, P. (2006): Phylogeny and classification of the avian superfamily Sylvioidea. '' Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.'' 38(2): 381–397. PDF fulltext
* del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (eds.) (2006): ''

Handbook of Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. Th ...

'' (Volume 11: Old World Flycatchers to Old World Warblers). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. * Fuchs, J.; Fjeldså, J.; Bowie, R.C.K.; Voelker, G. & Pasquet, E. (2006): The African warbler genus ''Hyliota'' as a lost lineage in the Oscine songbird tree: Molecular support for an African origin of the Passerida. '' Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.'' 39(1): 186–197. (HTML abstract) {{Taxonbar, from=Q9293884 Bird genera