Hydropsalis heterurus, (TODD, 1915)

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 HETERURUS (TODD, 1915)

Definition

Previously Caprimulgus parvulus heterurus . It is elevated to full species status and is the sister species of Hydropsalis parvulus (formerly C. p. parvulus ).

Diagnosis

Small, brownish-grey, with broad buff neck collar and a white throat patch. White tips on outermost primaries and tail feathers. Very similar to H. parvulus , but more extensive white markings near the tips of the feathers. There is 5% divergence in ND2 sequences between H. heterurus and H. parvulus .

Comments

Genetic evidence in this study supports splitting H. parvulus into two phylogenetic species along subspecies lines ( Fig. 7 ). This is congruent with the taxonomic modifications of Cleere (2010), based on observations on the morphology and vocalizations of the two taxa. Both species are placed in the genus Hydropsalis , as discussed earlier.

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).