5. Melampitta

After Mayr (1931) demonstrated that its syringeal morphology was oscine, the ground-living Melampitta group of montane New Guinea has been included among the Old World babblers ( Timaliidae) or Australo-Papuan logrunners, quail-thrushes and whipbirds ( Orthonychidae sensu lato) for much of the later 20 th century (Mayr 1941; Deignan 1964; Rand & Gilliard 1967; Wolters 1980a; Beehler & Finch 1985; Beehler et al. 1986). DNA-DNA hybridization (Sibley & Ahlquist 1987; Sibley & Monroe 1990) then placed it sister to the birds-of-paradise ( Paradisaeidae), to which Dickinson (2003) responded by treating it as incertae sedis and Boles (2007b) by returning it to the Australo-Papuan quail-thrushes and whipbirds. Subsequent multi-locus DNA sequence studies (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006; Irestedt et al. 2008; Jønsson et al. 2011; Aggerbeck et al. 2014) have consistently recovered Melampitta sister to members of a cluster of families that include not only the birds-of-paradise, but also Afro-Asian drongos ( Dicruridae), Australasian fantails and monarchs ( Rhipiduridae, Monarchidae), and Australian mudnesters ( Corcoracidae). Relationships to the birds-of-paradise and Australian mudnesters have the strongest support (Jønsson et al. l.c.: 1 mtDNA region and 4 nuclear loci, 72 corvoid taxa across all families; Aggerbeck et al. l.c.: 22 loci, 43 corvoid genera across all families).

Apart from the Australian mudnesters ( Corcoracidae) and, subtly, the birds-of-paradise, the Melampitta group bears negligible similarity to any of these tree-living families in form or niche. Its two species, lugubris and gigantea, are litter-foragers of the forest floor. They have large feet and toes, very short rounded wings with uniquely recurved and emarginated primaries, and ( lugubris) shortened sternum with much reduced keel―all consistent with terrestriality. Unlike the respective Australian mudnesters or birds-of-paradise, moreover, they appear to be neither communal nor polygynous (Coates 1990). Both species share a tuft of short plush feathering over frons and forehead that could be homologous to such tufts found in many genera of birds-of-paradise (e.g. Semioptera, Paradisaea, Parotia, Astrapia, Cicinnurus). Yet, although sharing a shallowly configured temporal region with Manucodia, Melampitta lugubris has a fully perforate nasal cavity, without any of the heavy ossification found in birds-of-paradise (Bock 1963). It also builds a bulky, bryophyte-draped domed nest near the ground (Frith & Frith 1990), unlike the coarse arboreal cups of twigs and leaves of birds-of-paradise or dish-shaped mud nests of the Corcoracidae . For gigantea, Diamond (1983) nevertheless recorded the nest as a “large suspended basket of vines”; no mention was made of a dome or side-entrance. Neonatal young of M. lugubris hatch downy, not naked as in birds-of-paradise, and are fed by direct feeding, not regurgitation (Frith & Frith 1990; Frith & Beehler 1998: 135, 138). Combined DNA sequence, morphological and behavioural evidence thus indicate that Melampitta, although apparently sister to the birds-of-paradise ( Paradisaeidae) and perhaps the Australian mudnesters ( Corcoracidae), is deeply divergent. Accordingly it is ranked at family level here.