Aleadryas, Iredale, 1956

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 : 507

1. Aleadryas , Ornorectes and Oreoica

Based on morphology, New Guinean Aleadryas and Ornorectes and Australian Oreoica have been placed separately or together in three different families― Pachycephalidae (Australasian whistlers), Falcunculidae (Australian shrike-tits) and Colluricinclidae (Australo-Papuan shrike-thrushes)―at one time or another over the last half century ( Mayr 1967; Wolters 1980a,b; Sibley & Monroe 1990; Dickinson 2003; Boles 2007a). Recent multi-locus DNA sequence studies screening two or all three genera together consistently recovered them as a strongly supported monophyletic lineage (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006; Driskell et al. 2007; Jønsson et al. 2007, 2010, 2011; Norman et al. 2009b). Shared morphological and behavioural traits are less obvious but do exist: rather stout bodies, crests of variable form, ventriloquial territorial songs in at least two genera ( Oreoica , Ornorectes ) and remarkably long, terete postorbital processes directed ventrally over the temporal fossae in the only two genera available for study ( Oreoica , Aleadryas ).

DNA sequence evidence for the relationships of this group (Australo-Papuan bellbirds) is less conclusive. In those studies sampling a broad range of corvoid families that include diverse members of Pachycephalidae , Falcunculidae and Colluricinclidae , the bellbirds have been linked to: (1) Old World orioles ( Oriolidae ) and New Guinean crested berrypeckers ( Paramythiidae ) ( Barker et al. 2004; Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006; Driskell et al. 2007); (2) Old World cuckoo-shrikes ( Campephagidae ) and New Guinean false whistlers ( Rhagologidae ) ( Jønsson et al. 2007); and (3) Campephagidae and the artamid-malanocotid (Australasian butcherbirds and woodswallows and African bush shrikes) cluster of families ( Norman et al. 2009b). Jønsson et al. (2011) placed the group sister to all primary core corvoid lineages. Only Aggerbeck et al. (2014) recovered the bellbirds among the pachycephaloids, but at a depth deeper than that between the Cinclosomatidae (Australo-Papuan quail-thrushes) and Falcunculidae (Australian shrike-tits). In sum, the Australo-Papuan bellbirds clearly form a family-rank lineage among corvoid birds, as concluded by Norman et al. (2009b). Norman et al. (l.c.), like Sibley & Ahlquist (1985) earlier, used the name Oreoicidae for them but provided no description, leaving it a nomen nudum (Articles 13.1 and 13.2.1 of the Code). Consequently, we make the name available by diagnosing the family below.