Family MENURIDAE Lesson, 1828

Museums

Regional Maps

• Menuridae Lesson, R.P. 1828. Manuel d' Ornithologie, ou Description des Genres et des principales Espèces d'Oiseaux. Paris : Roret Vol. 2 448 pp.

  Type genus:

   Menura Latham, 1801.

Introduction

The menurids, or lyrebirds, are a small monophyletic family with two species in one genus endemic to Australia and restricted to the central east and south east of the continent (Schodde & Mason 1999). A population was translocated to Tasmania in the 1930s, a State from which it was previously unknown. There are four known ultrataxa; monotypic, Menura alberti, and M. novaehollandiae with three ultrataxa. They are among the largest of the songbirds. Well-known characters of the family include the elaborate singing displays of the male and the mimicry included in the song repertoire. Females too are noted mimics although not as prolific. Much of their singing ability stems from the unusual structure of their syrinx.

Movement is restricted to wandering dispersal of young away from their parental territory and adult movement into adjoining territories during the breeding season. Both species share similar feeding behaviour scratching with their large claws and then probing the ground litter for invertebrate prey.

The lyrebirds occupy habitats that vary from subtropical and temperate rainforest, and wet and dry sclerophyll forests. Here they are primarily terrestrial although they are arboreal when roosting often moving to great heights. Pairs and single birds are normally noted, it is unusual for them to be found in small numbers. Small gathering occur during pre-breeding encounters or at times when outside pressures force them together.

Cooler winter months are selected for breeding, the adult female constructing a large domed stick nest unaided by the male. Such nests are placed in a variety of locations, including rock ledges, crowns of tree ferns and tree stumps. A single egg is laid in the nest. The egg is heavily marked, having a base colour of either brown or grey the surface of which is covered in its entirety by dark grey and purplish umber spots, dots and streaks.

Diagnosis

'Other characteristics of lyrebirds are their broad wings with high numbers of primaries (11) and secondaries (13-14 - Stephan 1965; Morlion 1985), their taxaspidean tarsi, their unmodified oscinine stapes in the ear, their large free lachrymals, and their furcula which, though completely ossified, lacks a hypocleideum (from Beddard 1898; Sibley 1970; Feducia 1975; Bock 1985). Like corvoids, honeyeaters and bower-birds, they have a single, deep trabeculated fossa at the head of the humerus (Bock 1962), and, according to cytochrome b sequences, are aligned phylogenetically with the first two groups (Espinosa & Cracraft 1994).'

Diagnosis References

Beddard, F.E. 1898. The Structure and Classification of Birds. London : Longmans, Green xx 548 pp.

Bock, W.J. 1962. The pneumatic fossa of the humerus in the Passeres. Auk 79: 425-443

Bock, W.J. 1985. The skeletomuscular system of the feeding apparatus of the Noisy Scrub-bird, Atrichornis clamosus (Passeriformes: Atrichornithidae). Records of the Australian Museum 37: 193-210

Espinosa, R. & Cracraft, J. 1994. Molecular phylogeny of the lyrebird. (Poster Paper). XXI International Ornithological Congress. Vienna.

Feduccia, J. 1974. Morphology of the bony stapes in New and Old World suboscines: new evidence for common ancestry. Auk 91: 427-429

Morlion, M.L. 1985. Pterylosis of the wing and tail in the Noisy Scrub-bird, Atrichornis clamosus, and Superb Lyrebird, Menura novaehollandiae (Passeriformes: Atrichornithidae and Menuridae). Records of the Australian Museum 37: 143-156

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.

Sibley, C.G. 1970. A comparative study of the egg-white proteins of passerine birds. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Bulletin 32: 1-131

Stephan, B. 1965. Die Zahl der Armschwingen bei den Passeriformes. Journal of Ornithology 106: 446-458

General 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.

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