Chordeiles texensis, (LAWRENCE, 1856)

Sigurðsson, Snorri & Cracraft, Joel, 2014, Deciphering the diversity and history of New World nightjars (Aves: Caprimulgidae) using molecular phylogenetics, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 170 (3), pp. 506-545 : 540-541

CHORDEILES TEXENSIS (LAWRENCE, 1856)

Definition

Previously Chordeiles acutipennis texensis . It is elevated to full species status and is the sister species of Chordeiles acutipennis Hermann, 1783 .

Diagnosis

Chordeiles texensis is similar morphologically to C. acutipennis , but is noticeably larger in size and paler in plumage, although C. a. littoralis and C. a. micromeris are somewhat intermediate in size between C. texensis and the remaining subspecies of C. acutipennis . Both ND2 and ACO1 I9 show genetic divergence between C. texensis and C. acutipennis , with over 2% divergence in ND2 sequences and 14 homologous substitution events.

Comments

Genetic evidence in this study supports the elevation of C. a. texensis to full species status ( Fig. 4 ). The other six subspecies of C. acutipennis remain as members of that species. Further study of the system is recommended, in particular regarding the status of C. a. littoralis and C. a. micromeris.

Figures

Figure 4. A phylogeny of the nighthawk clade based on a maximum-likelihood (ML) analysis of a concatenated 5298-bp molecular data set. ML bootstrap values higher than 60 and Bayesian posterior probability values higher than 0.95 are displayed on the nodes. Names on the tree represent current taxonomy; names on the right represent those resulting from this revision (see text).