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The mousebirds are a small group of (possibly near passerine
Near passerine

Near passerine or higher land-bird assemblage are terms often given to arboreal birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines due to ecological similarities; the group corresponds to some extent with the Anomalogonatae of Garrod ....
) bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s which have no real close affinities to other groups, though they and the parrots and cockatoos (Psittaciformes) may be closer to each other than to other birds. The mousebirds are therefore given order
Order (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order....
 status as Coliiformes. This group is confined to sub-Saharan Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, and is the only bird order confined entirely to that continent. They had a wider range in prehistoric times and apparently evolve
Evolve

Evolve may refer to:*Evolve, as in Evolution.*Evolve on The History Channel*Evolve Festival, an annual music and cultural festival held in Nova Scotia, Canada....
d in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
.

Description
They are slender greyish or brown birds with soft, hairlike body feathers.






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The mousebirds are a small group of (possibly near passerine
Near passerine

Near passerine or higher land-bird assemblage are terms often given to arboreal birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines due to ecological similarities; the group corresponds to some extent with the Anomalogonatae of Garrod ....
) bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s which have no real close affinities to other groups, though they and the parrots and cockatoos (Psittaciformes) may be closer to each other than to other birds. The mousebirds are therefore given order
Order (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order....
 status as Coliiformes. This group is confined to sub-Saharan Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, and is the only bird order confined entirely to that continent. They had a wider range in prehistoric times and apparently evolve
Evolve

Evolve may refer to:*Evolve, as in Evolution.*Evolve on The History Channel*Evolve Festival, an annual music and cultural festival held in Nova Scotia, Canada....
d in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
.

Description


They are slender greyish or brown birds with soft, hairlike body feathers. They are typically about 10 centimetres in body length, with a long, thin, tail a further 20-24 centimetres in length, and weigh 45-55 grams. They are arboreal and scurry through the leaves like rodent
Rodent

Rodentia is an Order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing Incisors#The_Rodent_incisor in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
s, in search of berries, fruit and buds. This habit, and their legs, gives rise to the group's English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 name. They are acrobatic, and can feed upside down. All species have strong claws and reversible outer toes. They also have crests and stubby bills.

Mousebirds are gregarious, again reinforcing the analogy with mice
Mouse

A mouse is a small animal that belongs to one of numerous species of rodents. The best known mouse species is the House Mouse . It is also a popular pet....
, and are found in bands of about twenty in lightly wooded country.

These birds build cup-shaped twig nests in trees, which are lined with grasses. 2-4 eggs are typically laid, hatching to give quite precocious young which soon leave the nest and acquire flight.

Systematics and evolution

The mousebirds could be considered "living fossil
Living fossil

Living fossil is an informal term for any living species of organism which appears to be the same as a species otherwise only known from fossils and which has no close living relatives....
s" as the 6 species extant today are merely the survivors of a lineage that was massively more diverse in the late Paleogene
Paleogene

The Paleogene is a geologic period that began 65.5 ? 0.3 and ended 23.03 ? 0.05 million years ago and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic era....
 and Miocene
Miocene

The Miocene is a Geologic time scale of the Neogene period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.33 million years before the present. As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are uncertain....
. There are comparatively abundant fossils of Coliiformes, but it has not been easy to assemble a robust phylogeny. The family is documented to exist from the Early Eocene
Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
 onwards; by the Late Eocene
Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
 or earlier, two families are known to have existed, the extant Coliidae and the longer-billed prehistorically extinct Sandcoleidae. The latter were previously a separate order, but eventually it was realized that they had come to group ancestral Coraciiformes
Coraciiformes

The Coraciiformes are a group of usually colourful near passerine birds including the kingfishers, the Hoopoe, the bee-eaters, the rollers, and the hornbills....
, parrot
Parrot

File:Ara ararauna -eating -Wilhelma Zoo-8-2rc.jpgParrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genus that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most warm and tropical regions....
s, the actual sandcoleids and forms like Neanis
Neanis

Neanis is an extinct genus of bird probably related to woodpeckers and toucans. It contains at least one species, N. schucherti; N. kistneri resembles this, but it probably belongs to a distinct genus and may not be closely related....
 together in a paraphyletic assemblage. Even though the sandcoleids are now assumed to be monophyletic following the removal of these taxa, many forms cannot be conclusively assigned to one family or the other. The genus Selmes, for example, is probably a coliid, but only distantly related to the modern genera..

Genera

Order COLIIFORMES
  • Basal and unassigned forms (all fossil
    Fossil

    Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
    )
    • Genus Chascacocolius (Late Paleocene ?- Early Eocene) - basal? sandcoleid?
    • Genus Eocolius (London Clay Early Eocene of Walton-on-the-Naze, England) - sandcoleid or coliid
    • Genus Selmes (Middle Eocene ?-Late Oligocene of C Europe) - coliid? (synonym of Primocolius?)
    • Genus Limnatornis (Early Miocene of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France) - coliid? (Urocolius?) Includes "Picus" consobrinus
    • "Picus" archiaci (Early Miocene of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France) - Limnatornis? coliid? (Urocolius?)
    • Genus Necrornis (Middle Miocene of France) - coliid? (Colius?)
    • Coliiformes gen. et sp. indet. (Late Miocene of Kohfidisch, Austria)
    • Genus Eobucco - sandcoleid?
    • Genus Uintornis - sandcoleid?
  • Family Coliidae
    • Basal and unassigned forms (all fossil
      Fossil

      Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
      )
      • Genus Primocolius (Late Eocene/Oligocene of Quercy, France)
      • Genus Oligocolius (Early Oligocene of Frauenweiler, Germany)
      • Genus Masillacolius (Middle Eocene of Messel, Germany)
    • Subfamily Coliinae
      • Genus Colius
        Colius

        Colius is a bird genus in the family Coliidae. It contains the following species:* Speckled Mousebird, Colius striatus* White-headed Mousebird, Colius leucocephalus...
         (4 species)
    • Subfamily Urocoliinae
      • Genus Urocolius
        Urocolius

        Urocolius is a small genus of mousebirds. It consists of two species which inhabit Eastern and Southern Africa:* Blue-naped Mousebird, Urocolius macrourus...
         (2 species)
  • Family Sandcoleidae (all fossil
    Fossil

    Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
    )
    • Genus Sandcoleus (Paleocene)
    • Genus Anneavis
    • Genus Eoglaucidium


Footnotes


External links

  • on the Internet Bird Collection
  • atop a tree