Hydropsalis decussatus, (TSCHUDI, 1844)

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 : 542

HYDROPSALIS DECUSSATUS (TSCHUDI, 1844)

Definition

Previously Caprimulgus longirostris decussatus . It is elevated to full species status. Its phylogenetic position within Hydropsalis is not completely resolved in this study. It is part of a four-way polytomy that includes the following clades: (1) H. decussatus ; (2) H. lyra and H. segmentata ; (3) H. parvulus and H. heterurus ; and (4) H. longirostris , H. roraimae , H. ruficervix , H. anomalus , H. candicans , H. maculicaudus , H. forcipata , H. albicauda , H. cayennensis , H. climacocerca , and H. torquata .

Diagnosis

Small, cryptically coloured nightjar with a slender long bill. It is morphologically similar to H. l. atripunctatus in plumage and body shape, but much smaller in size. Territorial calls are also different ( Cleere, 2010).

Comments

Genetic evidence strongly supports H. decussatus being an independent diagnosable species ( Fig. 7 ). Although formerly a subspecies of H. (Caprimulgus) longirostris , the phylogenetic results show that it is distant from H. longirostris , despite some morphological similarities.

Figures

Figure 7. A phylogeny of the Hydropsalis group of the South American 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).