Family CAMPEPHAGIDAE Vigors, 1825

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• Campephagidae Vigors, 1825.

Introduction

Cuckoo-shrikes and trillers are part of an Old World family widely dispersed from Africa, Asia and many islands of the south-western Pacific (Dickinson 2003). The family comprises seven genera represented by 81 species; only two genera represented by eight species are recorded for Australia and its territories (or 10% of the world total); within this Australian group are 18 ultrataxa. One species, the Ground Cuckoo-shrike Coracina maxima, is an Australian endemic; it was previously placed in a monotypic genus (Pteropodocys).

It is within the area of New Guinea, Australia and the eastern Indonesian Archipelago that the family has its distributional centre. Campephagids are widespread across the Australian mainland occupying most habitats. Only one species occurs in Tasmania, the Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Coracina novaehollandiae. An island population of the nominate subspecies of Lalage leucopyga formerly occurred on Norfolk Island but was extinguished.

Australian taxa are arboreal or aerial feeders, an exception being the terrestrial Ground Cuckoo-shrike, a ground frequenter in most aspects. There is a tendency for cuckoo-shrikes and trillers to have a north-south migratory pattern; others such as the Ground Cuckoo-shrike exhibit a nomadic existence. Feeding is by gleaning, hawking and snatching invertebrates and is restricted primarily to the canopies and outer limbs of trees, and aerial forays. Cuckoo-shrikes can be gregarious in the cooler months, flocks forming during migrations; also family groups attend feeding communities. Trillers are found either singly or in small family groups.

Nests are delicate structures placed in the horizontal fork of a tree; their construction is of twigs bound with cobwebs and shaped like a shallow dish. These nests are lined with finer vegetable material and feathers. Eggs, normally two or three, have a greenish base and are heavily blotched or spotted with dark greens and browns.

Most Australian species show a soft grey plumage interspersed with black on the tail and wings; others have variations of this theme from dark bluish grey to patterns of black and white and many possess a powder down.

Diagnosis

'Structurally, cuckoo-shrikes and trillers are corvids. They have a single, deep, trabeculated humeral fossa, and a configuration of the palate and temporal region of the skull that is crow-like. The nasal cavity is fully aperturate with crow-like vomer and narrow nasal bars, the tips of the maxillo-palatines are bulbous with lateral grooves, broad palatine shelves have well-developed interpalatine processes, a crow-like ectethmoid plate has a broad, slit-like ectethmoid foramen and free lachrymals undercutting the wing on the latero-ventral face, and large and clearly defined temporal fossae have moderately developed flanking processes; the zygomatic is often more acute than the postorbital, with frequent traces of doubling'.

Diagnosis References

Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.

General References

Dickinson, E.C. (ed.) 2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. London : Christopher Helm 1039 pp.

Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.

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