Family Monarchidae Monarch Flycatchers

The monarchs or monarch flycatchers (family Monarchidae) comprise a family of over 100 passerine birds which includes shrikebills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-larks.

Monarchids are small insectivorous songbirds with long tails. They inhabit forest or woodland across sub-Saharan Africa, south-east Asia, Australasia, and a number of Pacific islands. Only a few species migrate. Many species decorate their cup-shaped nests with lichen.[2]

Taxonomy

Some of the one hundred or more species making up the family were previously assigned to other groups, largely on the basis of general morphology or behaviour. The magpie-lark, for example, was assigned to the same family as the white-winged chough, since both build unusual nests from mud rather than vegetable matter. That family, Grallinidae, is now considered a synonym of Monarchidae. It was formerly considered to have four species. The magpie-lark and the torrent-lark were moved into Monarchidae, into the genus Grallina, on the basis of molecular evidence.[3] The white-winged chough and the apostlebird were assigned to the family Corcoracidae.

With the new insights generated by the DNA-DNA hybridisation studies of Sibley and his co-workers toward the end of the 20th century, however, it became clear that these apparently unrelated birds were all descended from a common ancestor: the same crow-like ancestor that gave rise to the drongos.[4] On that basis they were previously included as a subfamily of the Dicruridae, along with the fantails,[5] although it is now treated at familial rank as Monarchidae.[6]

More recently, the grouping has been refined somewhat as the original concept of Corvida has proven paraphyletic. The narrower 'Core corvine' group now comprises the crows and ravens, shrikes, birds of paradise, fantails, monarchs, drongos, and mud nest builders.[7]