Ifrita, Rothschild, 1898

Schoddei, Richard & Christidis, Les, 2014, Relicts from Tertiary Australasia: undescribed families and subfamilies of songbirds (Passeriformes) and their zoogeographic signal, Zootaxa 3786 (5), pp. 501-522 : 510-511

4. Ifrita

The relationships of New Guinean Ifrita have long been perplexing. Mathews (1930) referred the genus to family Bowdleriidae in the Old World warbler complex, Mayr (1941) and Rand & Gilliard (1967) to the Old World babblers ( Timaliidae ), Deignan (1964), Beehler & Finch (1985) and Beehler et al. (1986) to an enlarged Australo- Papuan Orthonychidae (logrunners), and Boles (2007b) to Eupetidae , which included a mix of Afro-Asian railbabblers and Australo-Papuan whipbirds and quail-thrushes. Cracraft et al. in Dickinson (2003) treated Ifrita as incertae sedis. Since then four multi-locus DNA sequence studies have clarified its position ( Jønsson et al. 2007, 2011; Norman et al. 2009b; Aggerbeck et al. 2014). All found it embedded, without close relatives, among a cluster of Australasian and Old World corvoid families that includes the monarchs ( Monarchidae ), shrikes ( Laniidae ), crows ( Corvidae ), birds-of-paradise ( Paradisaeidae ) and Australian mudnesters ( Corcoracidae ). The two most comprehensive of these studies, moreover, recovered Ifrita respectively sister to the first three and last two of these families, with strong support ( Jønsson et al. 2011; Aggerbeck et al. l.c.).

In morphology and behaviour, Ifrita is altogether unlike the mostly black, rufous or pied, hawking monarchs, pied or brown perch-pouncing shrikes or large, varicolored, omnivorous corvids, let alone the mostly brilliantly plumaged, polygynous birds-of-paradise and ground-feeding mudnesters. It is a rather small brown scansorial creeper on the branches of forest trees, for which its stout, powerfully clawed feet are evidently adapted. It nevertheless lacks syndactyly of the toes that restricts lateral flexibility of movement as in the Australo-Papuan treecreepers ( Climacteridae ). Flight is weak, as indicated by rounded wings and short, broad sternum with reduced keel, and is apparently used for little more than movements from tree to tree. Neither nest nor eggs (see family diagnosis) resemble those of monarchs, shrikes or crows; and the nest is constructed of plant fiber, not mud. Because it is sister to other lineages recognized as families, we rank Ifrita at family level as well.