• 10 species worldwide
• DR personal total: 4 species (40%), 2 photos

Penduline Tits are a small family of tiny passerines found mostly in Eurasia and Africa, with a single example in the New World. They are arboreal and insectivorous, like this Southern Penduline-Tit (left) of southern Africa. They are generally found in pairs or small groups. Habitat preferences include open woodlands in Eurasian species, but also thornscrub in Africa and southwestern North America.

Jønsson & Fjeldså (2006) recognized 13 branches (="clades") of Sylvioidea passerines, and the penduline tits are found in clade 2 next to the parids (tits & chickadees) and the stenostirid 'flycatchers' that are not flycatchers at all (more on that below). Although close to the parids, they form a very distinctive group biochemically, and this supports their retention as a distinct family (see also Sheldon & Gill 1996, Gill et al. 2005, Alström et al. 2006).

The only New World member of the Remizidae is Verdin (right), a small gregarious passerine of the American southwest mesquite scrub. Its sibilant calls are constant under the hot sun in that habitat.

Among the features shared by the Old World penduline tits and Verdin is that they all build "basically similar pendent, pouch-like nests made of felted vegetable down with an opening near the top" (Cramp & Perrins 1993). Those occurring in warm climates are resident, but those in eastern Asia do move south in winter.

As noted, the biochemical evidence suggests that the closest relatives are the Tits & Chickadees (and this seems logically apparent) but they are also related to the stenostirids, a previously overlooked group of African & Asian passerines that have flycatching behaviors and have been considered 'flycatchers' in the past (see Beresford et al. 2005, who propose that the Stenostiridae be accepted as its own family). The true relationships among these groups are not well resolved (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006) and further research is needed.

The inclusion of the stenostirids was a huge surprise, and not anticipated by earlier writers. Some, like Harrap & Quinn (1995) lumped penduline-tits with the regular tits, having been confused by Sibley & Monroe's (1990) proposal that the remizids were close to gnatcatchers. Harrap & Quinn also mistakenly placed the African tit-hylia Pholidornis rushiae in this group, but molecular research has shown that the tit-hylia is not closely related at all (e.g., Sefe et al. 2003). Both Green Hylia and Tit-Hylia are placed in Cettiidae (Alström et al. 2006)

As it now stands, the Remizidae is composed of Verdin, Eurasian Penduline-Tit in the genus Remiz, seven species of Penduline-Tit in the genus Anthoscopus, and (tentatively) Fire-capped Tit Dephalopyrus flammiceps of the Himalayas. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out over time as more research is published. For now, the Penduline Tits are a group of very tiny birds scattered in open or scrubby woodlands around the globe.

Photos: The Southern Penduline Tit Anthoscopus minutus was in Etosha National Park, Namibia, on 19 July 2005. The male Verdin Auriparus flaviceps was in Anza-Borrego State Park, California, on 13 Apr 2006. All photos © 2007 Don Roberson; all rights reserved.

Family Book: Rating

Harrap, Simon, and David Quinn. 1995. Chickadees, Tits, Nuthatches & Treecreepers. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N. J.

This is a pleasant and solid addition to the family books in the Princeton series. The plates appear separately in the front. I found the artwork rather good in a "field guide" style (without much background) opposite summary pages which include small maps. The maps I looked at were quite good (e.g., they and the text covered isolated populations of Mountain Chickadee in California, an unexpected bit of accuracy I've come to not expect in such family tomes). Distinct races are nicely covered, and they did well with the variation in my local chickadee, the Chestnut-backed. The text cover identification, habitat, breeding biology (very summarized), relationships, and detailed plumage descriptions, plus references which (in contrast to other similar efforts) look reasonably extensive. I don't personally see the need for the detailed plumage descriptions since no book like this can hope to cover the complete range of variation, and they are very tedious to read, but it is the "style" of these family books. There are some helpful extra maps and sketches of plumage details scattered in the text.

I was a bit put off by the use of Sibley & Monroe (1990) family taxonomy (since subject to criticism) and the unnecessary "lumping" of the penduline tits with the "true" tits. [And in 1995, they were also obviously unaware of the 21st century research that would show Pseudopodoces "ground-jay" would prove to be a tit.] It is the quality of the text that prompts me to give this a "four-star" rating, just about as high of a rating that I'll give to this type of family book.

This family will be covered by the Handbook of the Birds of the World series in Vol. 12, due out in fall 2007.

Literature cited:

Alström P., P.G.P. Ericson, U. Olsson, and P. Sundberg. 2006. Phylogeny and classification of the avian superfamily Sylvoidea. Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution 38: 381-397.

Beresford, P., F.K. Barker, P.G. Ryan, and T.M. Crowe. 2005. African endemics span the tree of songbird (Passeri): molecular systematics of several evolutionary 'enigmas.' Proc. Royal Soc. London B. 272: 849-858.

Cramp, S., and Perrins, C.M., eds. 1993. Handbook of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: the Birds of the Western Palearctic. Vol. VII. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

Gill, F.B., B. Slikas, and F.H. Sheldon. 2005. Phylogeny of titmice (Paridae): II. Species relationships based on sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene. Auk 122: 121-142.

Jønsson, K.A., and J. Fjeldså. 2006. A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds. Zoologica Scripta 35: 149-186.

Sefe, K.M., R.B. Payne, and M.D. Sorenson. 2003. Phylogenetic relationships of AFrican sunbird-like warblers: Moho (Hypergerus atriceps), Green Hylia (Hylia prasina) and Tit-hylia (Pholidornis rushiae). Ostrich 74: 8-17.

Sheldon, F.H, and F.B. Gill. 1996. A reconsideration of songbird phylogeny, with emphasis on the evolution of titmice and their sylvioid relatives. Syst. Biol. 45: 473-495.

Sibley, C.G., and B.L. Monroe, Jr. 1990. Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.