Tit (bird)

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Tit
Lophophanes cristatus -Aviemore, Scotland-8 (2).jpg
Crested tit in Scotland
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Infraorder: Passerida
Family: Paridae
Vigors, 1825
Genera

5–10, see text.

Paridae Distribution.PNG
Global range (In green)
Synonyms

See text

The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds which occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and Africa. Most were formerly classified in the genus Parus.

Members of this family are commonly referred to as "tits" throughout much of the English-speaking world, but North American species are called either "chickadees" (onomatopoeic, derived from their distinctive "chick-a dee dee dee" alarm call) [1] or "titmice". The name titmouse is recorded from the 14th century, composed of the Old English name for the bird, mase (Proto-Germanic *maison, Dutch mees, German Meise), and tit, denoting something small. The former spelling, "titmose", was influenced by mouse in the 16th century. [2] Emigrants to New Zealand presumably identified some of the superficially similar birds of the genus Petroica of the family Petroicidae, the Australian robins, as members of the tit family, giving them the title tomtit, although, in fact, they are not related.

These birds are mainly small, stocky, woodland species with short, stout bills. Some have crests. They range in length from 10 to 22 cm (3.9 to 8.7 in). They are adaptable birds, with a mixed diet including seeds and insects. [3] Many species live around human habitation and come readily to bird feeders for nuts or seed, and learn to take other foods.

Description

With the exception of the three monotypic genera Sylviparus, Melanochlora, and Pseudopodoces, the tits are extremely similar in appearance, and have been described as "one of the most conservative avian families in terms of general morphology". [4] The typical body length of adult members of the family is between 10 and 16 cm (3.9 and 6.3 in) in length; when the monotypic genera are added, this range is from 9 to 21 cm (3.5 to 8.3 in). In weight, the family ranges from 5 to 49 g (0.18 to 1.73 oz); this contracts to 7 to 29 g (0.25 to 1.02 oz) when the three atypical genera are removed. The majority of the variation within the family is in plumage, and particularly colour. [5]

The bills of the tits are generally short, varying between stout and fine, depending on diet. The more insectivorous species have finer bills, whereas those that consume more seeds have stouter bills. It is said that tits are evolving longer beaks to reach into bird feeders. [6] The most aberrant bill of the family is possessed by Hume's ground tit of Tibet and the Himalayas, which is long and decurved. [5]

Distribution and habitat

The tufted titmouse is restricted to North America. Tufted Titmouse-27527-2.jpg
The tufted titmouse is restricted to North America.

The tits are a widespread family of birds, occurring over most of Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. The genus Poecile occurs from Europe through Asia into North America, as far south as southern Mexico. American species in this genus are known as chickadees. Some species in this genus have quite large natural distributions; one, the grey-headed chickadee, is distributed from Scandinavia to Alaska and Canada. The majority of the tits in the genus Periparus are found in the southeastern portion of Asia. This includes two species endemic to the Philippines. The coal tit, also in this genus, is a much more widespread species, ranging from the British Isles and North Africa to Japan. The two crested tits of the genus Lophophanes have a disjunct distribution, with one species occurring in Europe and the other in central Asia. [5]

The genus Baeolophus is endemic to North America. The genus Parus includes the great tit that ranges from Western Europe to Indonesia. Cyanistes has a European and Asian distribution (also into northern Africa), and the three remaining genera, Pseudopodoces , Sylviparus , and Melanochlora , are all restricted to Asia. [5]

Behaviour

Tits are active, noisy, and social birds. They are territorial during the breeding season and often join mixed-species feeding flocks during the nonbreeding season. The tits are highly adaptable, and after the corvids (crows and jays) and parrots, amongst the most intelligent of all birds. [5]

Fission–fusion society

Fission–fusion society has been documented in a number of avian taxa including this one. [7] [8] [9] In brief, that means flocks can split into smaller groups or individuals, and subsequently reunite.

Vocalisations

A great tit calling in Finland.

The tits make a variety of calls and songs. They are amongst the most vocal of all birds, calling continuously in most situations, so much so that they are only ever silent for specific reasons such as avoiding predators or when intruding on a rival's territory. Quiet contact calls are made while feeding to facilitate cohesion with others in their social group. [5] Other calls are used for signalling alarm—a well-known example being the "chic-a-dee-dee" of North American species in the genus Poecile, the call which gives them their local common name, the chickadee. The call also serves as a rallying call to summon others to mob and harass the predator. The number of "dee" syllables at the end of the call increases with the level of danger the predator poses. [10]

Diet and feeding

Hold-hammering is a common way for the family to deal with food items. Marsh tit, Leighton Moss, December 2008.jpg
Hold-hammering is a common way for the family to deal with food items.
Blue tit with prey item CyanistesCaeruleusWithForage.jpg
Blue tit with prey item

The tits are generalist insectivores that consume a wide range of small insects and other invertebrates, particularly small defoliating caterpillars. They also consume seeds and nuts, particularly in the winter. One characteristic method of foraging in the family is hanging, where they inspect a branch or twig and leaves from all angles while hanging upside down to feed. [5] In areas where numerous species of tit coexist, different species forage in different parts of the tree, their niche determined in no small way by their morphology; larger species forage on the ground, medium-sized species foraging on larger branches, and the smallest species on the ends of branches. Having obtained larger prey items or seeds, tits engage in hold-hammering, where they hold the item between their feet and hammer it with their bill until it opens. In this fashion, they can even open hazelnuts in around 20 minutes. A number of genera engage in food caching, hoarding supplies of food during the winter. [11]

Breeding

Tits are cavity-nesting birds, typically using trees, although Pseudopodoces [12] builds a nest on the ground. Most tree-nesting tits excavate their nests, [13] and clutch sizes are generally large for altricial birds, ranging from usually two eggs in the rufous-vented tit of the Himalayas to as many as 10 to 14 in the blue tit of Europe. [14] [15] In favourable conditions, this species had laid as many as 19 eggs, which is the largest clutch of any altricial bird. [3] Most tits are multibrooded, a necessary strategy to cope with either the harsh winters in which they reside in the Holarctic or the extremely erratic conditions of tropical Africa, [15] where typically a single pair cannot find enough food to rear even one nestling and in drought years breeding is likely to be futile.

Many African tit species, along with Pseudopodoces, are cooperative breeders, [16] and even pair-breeding parids are often highly social and maintain stable flocks throughout the nonbreeding season. [17]

Tits also have a variety of methods for attracting mates, primarily through their intricate, bouncing mating dance. Only the blue tit is typically polygynous; all other species are generally monogamous. [18] Courtship feeding is typical of pair-breeding tits to deal with the cost of rearing their large broods.

Systematics

The marsh tit was once placed in the genus Parus, but has now been moved to the genus Poecile. Parus palustris02.jpg
The marsh tit was once placed in the genus Parus, but has now been moved to the genus Poecile.

Recently, the large Parus group has been gradually split into several genera (as indicated below), initially by North American ornithological authorities and later elsewhere. Whereas in the mid-1990s, only Pseudopodoces, Baeolophus, Melanochlora, and Sylviparus were considered well-supported by the available data as distinct from Parus. [19] Today, this arrangement is considered paraphyletic as indicated by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis, and Parus is best restricted to the Parus major—Parus fasciiventer clade, and even the latter species' closest relatives might be considered a distinct genus. [20]

In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, the family Paridae is much enlarged to include related groups such as the penduline tits and long-tailed tits, but while the former are quite close to the tits and could conceivably be included in that family together with the stenostirid "warblers", the long-tailed tits are not. Indeed, the yellow-browed tit and the sultan tit are possibly more distant to the tits than the penduline tits are. [20] [21] If the two current families are lumped into the Paridae, the tits would be a subfamily Parinae.

Alternatively, all tits—save the two monotypic genera discussed in the preceding section and possibly Cyanistes, but including Hume's ground tit—could be lumped in Parus. In any case, four major clades of "typical" tits can be recognized: the dark-capped chickadees and their relatives (Poecile including Sittiparus), the long-crested Baeolophus and Lophophanes species, the usually tufted, white-cheeked Periparus (including Pardaliparus) with more subdued coloration and finally Parus sensu stricto (including Melaniparus and Machlolophus). Still, the interrelationship of these, as well as the relationships of many species within the clades, are not well-resolved at all; analysis of morphology and biogeography probably gives a more robust picture than the available molecular data. [20]

Tits have settled North America twice, probably at some time during the Early-Mid Pliocene. The first were the ancestors of Baeolophus, with chickadees arriving somewhat later. [20]

Species in taxonomic order

 
Phylogeny of the Paridae based on Johansson et al. 2013 [22]
Tit in a winter tree Tit the bird and thanks for looking.JPG
Tit in a winter tree
Four different tits, although the top-right bird, the long-tailed tit, is not a member of the Paridae Vogels door Jan van Oort (01).jpg
Four different tits, although the top-right bird, the long-tailed tit, is not a member of the Paridae

Family: PARIDAE [23]

ImageGenusLiving species
Cephalopyrus flammiceps, Bhutan 1.jpg Cephalopyrus Bonaparte, 1854
Yellow-browed Tit Fambong Lho Wildlife Sanctuary Sikkim 30.03.2014.jpg Sylviparus Burton, 1836
Sultan Tit Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary Darjeeling, West Bengal, India (cropped).jpg Melanochlora Lesson, 1839
2017.01.27.-18-Paradiski-La Plagne-Champagny-en-Vanoise--Tannenmeise.jpg Periparus Sélys Longchamps, 1884
Elegant Tit.jpg Pardaliparus Sélys Longchamps, 1884
Messange huppee 02.jpg Lophophanes Kaup, 1829
Bridled Titmouse (Baeolophus wollweberi) (16875140301).jpg Baeolophus Cabanis, 1850
Poecile varius on plate.JPG Sittiparus Selys-Longchamps, 1884
Poecile montanus kleinschmidti.jpg Poecile Kaup, 1829
Eurasian blue tit Lancashire.jpg Cyanistes Kaup, 1829
Ground Tit north Sikkim India 16.10.2019.jpg Pseudopodoces Zarudny & Loudon, 1902
Great tit (Parus major), Parc du Rouge-Cloitre, Foret de Soignes, Brussels (26194636951).jpg Parus Linnaeus, 1758
Taiwan tit.jpg Machlolophus Cabanis, 1850
Parus afer -Namaqua National Park, Northern Cape, South Africa -adult-6.jpg Melaniparus Bonaparte, 1850

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ground tit</span> Species of bird

The ground tit, Tibetan ground-tit or Hume's ground-tit is a bird of the Tibetan plateau north of the Himalayas. The peculiar appearance confused ornithologists in the past who called it as Hume's groundpecker and still later as Hume's ground jay or Tibetan ground jay assuming that it belonged to the family Corvidae that includes the crows and jays. Although morphologically confusing, the species has since been identified using molecular sequence comparisons as being a member of the tit family (Paridae) and is the only species in the genus Pseudopodoces. It is found in the Tibetan Plateau of China, India, Nepal & Bhutan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willow tit</span> Species of passerine bird in the tit family Paridae

The willow tit is a passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate and subarctic Europe and across the Palearctic. The plumage is grey-brown and off-white with a black cap and bib. It is more of a conifer specialist than the closely related marsh tit, which explains it breeding much further north. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black-capped chickadee</span> Species of small, non-migratory, North American passerine

The black-capped chickadee is a small, nonmigratory, North American passerine bird that lives in deciduous and mixed forests. It is a member of the Paridae family, also known as tits. It has a distinct black cap on its head, a black bib underneath, and white cheeks. It has a white belly, buff sides, and grey wings, back, and tail. The bird is well known for its vocalizations, including its fee-bee call and its chick-a-dee-dee-dee call, from which it derives its name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolina chickadee</span> Species of bird

The Carolina chickadee is a small passerine bird in the tit family Paridae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boreal chickadee</span> Species of bird

The boreal chickadee is a small passerine songbird in the tit family Paridae. It is found in the boreal forests of Alaska, Canada and the northern United States and remains within this range all year. This bird is known for its high pitched trill patterns used in communication with other birds and food storage habits in preparation for winter months.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tufted titmouse</span> Species of bird (Baeolophus bicolor)

The tufted titmouse is a small songbird from North America, a species in the tit and chickadee family (Paridae). The black-crested titmouse, found from central and southern Texas southward, was included as a subspecies but now is considered a separate species, Baeolophus atricristatus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey-headed chickadee</span> Species of bird

The grey-headed chickadee or Siberian tit, formerly Parus cinctus, is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread resident breeder throughout subarctic Scandinavia and the northern Palearctic, and also into North America in Alaska and the far northwest of Canada. It is a conifer specialist. It is resident, and most birds do not migrate. Curiously, the bird has no grey on its head, which is black, white, and brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mountain chickadee</span> Species of bird

The mountain chickadee is a small songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mexican chickadee</span> Species of bird

The Mexican chickadee is a small songbird, a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is still often placed in the genus Parus with most other tits, but mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data and morphology suggest that separating Poecile more adequately expresses these birds' relationships. The American Ornithologists' Union had been treating Poecile as distinct genus for some time already.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oak titmouse</span> Species of bird

The oak titmouse is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. The American Ornithologists' Union split the plain titmouse into the oak titmouse and the juniper titmouse in 1996, due to distinct differences in song, preferred habitat, and genetic makeup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sultan tit</span> Species of bird

The sultan tit is an Asian forest bird with a yellow crest, dark bill, black upperparts plumage and yellow underparts. The sexes are similar. The female has greenish-black upperparts and a yellowish throat. The young bird is duller than the adult and has a shorter crest. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Melanochlora, which is fairly distinct from the Parus tits with the nearest relative being the monotypic Sylviparus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Varied tit</span> Species of bird

The varied tit is a perching bird from the tit family, Paridae. It occurs in the eastern Palearctic in Japan, Korea, and locally in northeastern China and extreme southeastern Russia.

<i>Baeolophus</i> Genus of birds

Baeolophus is a genus of birds in the family Paridae, commonly called tits. Its members are known as titmouses or titmice. All the species are native to North America. In the past, most authorities retained Baeolophus as a subgenus within the genus Parus, but treatment as a distinct genus, initiated by the American Ornithological Society, is now widely accepted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey tit</span> Species of bird

The grey tit is a species of bird in the tit family Paridae. It is found in Lesotho and South Africa. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.

<i>Parus</i> Genus of birds

Parus is a genus of Old World birds in the tit family. It was formerly a large genus containing most of the 50 odd species in the family Paridae. The genus was split into several resurrected genera following the publication of a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis in 2013. The genus name, Parus, is the Latin word for "tit".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elegant tit</span> Species of bird

The elegant tit is a species of bird in the tit family Paridae endemic to the Philippines.

<i>Poecile</i> Genus of birds in the tit family Paridae

Poecile is a genus of birds in the tit family Paridae. It contains 15 species, which are scattered across North America, Europe and Asia; the North American species are the chickadees. In the past, most authorities retained Poecile as a subgenus within the genus Parus, but treatment as a distinct genus, initiated by the American Ornithologists Union, is now widely accepted. This is supported by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis.

<i>Periparus</i> Genus of birds

Periparus is a genus of birds in the tit family. The birds in the genus were formerly included in Parus but were moved to Periparus when Parus was split into several resurrected genera following the publication of a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis in 2005. The name Periparus had been introduced for a subgenus of Parus that included the coal tit by the Belgium naturalist Edmond de Sélys Longchamps in 1884. The genus name, is Ancient Greek peri plus the pre-existing genus Parus.

<i>Pardaliparus</i> Genus of birds

Pardaliparus is a genus of birds in the tit family. The members of the genus were formerly included in Parus but were moved to Pardaliparus when Parus was split into several resurrected genera following the publication of a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian black-lored tit</span> Species of bird

The Indian black-lored tit, Indian tit, or Indian yellow tit is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. The yellow-cheeked tit is probably its closest relative, and both may be related to the yellow tit. These three tits almost certainly form a distinct lineage as evidenced by morphology, and mtDNA cytochrome b sequence analysis. The subgenus name Macholophus may apply for them.

References

  1. ↑ The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Springfield, MA, USA: Merriam-Webster. 1991. p. 362. ISBN   0-87779-603-3.
  2. ↑ Douglas Harper (© 2001-2015). "titmouse (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2015-04-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 Perrins, C. (1991). Forshaw, Joseph (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Animals: Birds. London: Merehurst Press. pp. 202–203. ISBN   1-85391-186-0.
  4. ↑ Gosler & Clement (2007) P.669
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gosler, Andrew; Clement, Peter (2007). "Family Paridae (Tits and Chickadees)". In del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Christie, David (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 12: Picathartes to Tits and Chickadees. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. pp. 662–709. ISBN   978-84-96553-42-2.
  6. ↑ "Great Tits May be Evolving Bigger Beaks. Here's Why". 19 October 2017. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017.
  7. ↑ Kendra, Sewall (2015). "Social Complexity as a Driver of Communication and Cognition". Integrative and Comparative Biology. 55 (3): 384–395. doi: 10.1093/icb/icv064 . PMID   26078368.
  8. ↑ Alpin, L. M.; Farine, D. R.; Morand-Ferron, J.; Cole, E. F.; Cockburn, A.; Sheldon, B. C. (2013). "Individual personalities predict social behaviour in wild networks of great tits (Parus major)". Ecology Letters. 16 (11): 1365–1372. doi:10.1111/ele.12181. hdl: 1885/66143 . PMID   24047530. S2CID   3400989.[ dead link ]
  9. ↑ admin (2022-08-15). "Tufted Titmouse - Best Facts 2022". Birds At First Sight. Retrieved 2022-09-30.
  10. ↑ Templeton, Christopher; Greene, Erick; Davis, Kate (2005). "Allometry of Alarm Calls: Black-Capped Chickadees Encode Information About Predator Size". Science. 308 (5730): 1934–1937. Bibcode:2005Sci...308.1934T. doi:10.1126/science.1108841. PMID   15976305. S2CID   42276496.
  11. ↑ Jokinen, S; Suhonen, J (1995). "Food Caching By Willow and Crested Tits: A Test of Scatterhoarding Models". Ecology. 76 (3): 892–898. doi:10.2307/1939354. JSTOR   1939354.
  12. ↑ "Pseudopodoces humilis, a misclassified terrestrial tit (Paridae) of the Tibetan Plateau: evolutionary consequences of shifting adaptive zones" [ permanent dead link ]
  13. ↑ Mönkkönen, Mikko and Orell, Markku; "Clutch Size and Cavity Excavation in Parids (Paridae): The Limited Breeding Opportunities Hypothesis Tested" in The American Naturalist , Vol. 149, No. 6 (June 1997), pp. 1164–1174
  14. ↑ "List of Species and Data Sources Used for Geographic Distributions and Data on Clutch Sizes and Intrinsic Variables"
  15. 1 2 Newton, Ian; Population Limitation in Birds; p. 25. ISBN   9780125173667
  16. ↑ Johannessen, Lars E. (2011). "Geographical variation in patterns of parentage and relatedness in the co-operatively breeding Ground Tit Parus humilis". Ibis. 153 (2): 373–383. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2011.01115.x.
  17. ↑ Stacey, Peter B. and Ligon, J. David; "The Benefits-of-Philopatry Hypothesis for the Evolution of Cooperative Breeding: Variation in Territory Quality and Group Size Effects" in The American Naturalist , Vol. 137, No. 6 (Jun., 1991), pp. 831–846
  18. ↑ Andersson, S; Rnborg, J; Andersson, M (1998). "Ultraviolet sexual dimorphism and assortative mating in blue tits". Proc Biol Sci. 265 (1395): 445–450. doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0315. PMC   1688915 .
  19. ↑ Harrap, Simon & Quinn, David (1996): Tits, Nuthatches & Treecreepers. Christopher Helm, London. ISBN   0-7136-3964-4
  20. 1 2 3 4 Gill, Frank B.; Slikas, Beth; Sheldon, Frederick H. (2005). "Phylogeny of titmice (Paridae): II. Species relationships based on sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene". Auk . 122 (1): 121–143. doi:10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122[0121:POTPIS]2.0.CO;2. S2CID   86067032.
  21. ↑ Jønsson, Knud A.; Fjeldså, Jon (2006). "Determining biogeographical patterns of dispersal and diversification in oscine passerine birds in Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa". J. Biogeogr. 33 (7): 1155–1165. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01507.x. S2CID   84542347.
  22. ↑ Johansson, Ulf S; Ekman, Jan; Bowie, Rauri C.K; Halvarsson, Peter; Ohlson, Jan I; Price, Trevor D; Ericson, Per G.P (2013). "A complete multilocus species phylogeny of the tits and chickadees (Aves: Paridae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 69 (3): 852–860. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.06.019. PMID   23831453.
  23. ↑ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David (eds.). "Waxwings and their allies, tits & penduline tits". World Bird List Version 6.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  24. ↑ James, H. F. et al. (2003). Pseudopodoces humilis, a misclassified terrestrial tit (Paridae) of the Tibetan Plateau: evolutionary consequences of shifting adaptive zones. Ibis 145: 185–202.pdf file Archived 2006-09-21 at the Wayback Machine
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