Pachycephala

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Genus of birds

title: "Pachycephala" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["pachycephala", "bird-genera"] description: "Genus of birds" topic_path: "general/pachycephala" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachycephala" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Genus of birds ::

| image = Rufous Whistler male kobble.jpg | image_caption = Adult male rufous whistler (Pachycephala rufiventris) | taxon = Pachycephala | authority = Vigors, 1825 | type_species = Muscicapa pectoralis | type_species_authority = Latham, 1801 | synonyms = * Alisterornis

  • Hyloterpe
  • Lewinornis
  • Muscitrea

Pachycephala is a genus of birds native to Oceania and Southeast Asia. They are commonly known as typical whistlers. Older guidebooks may refer to them as thickheads, a literal translation of the genus name, which is derived from Ancient Greek παχύς (pakhús), meaning "thick", and κεφαλή (kephalḗ), meaning "head". This lineage originated in Australo-Papua and later colonized the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos to the west and the Pacific archipelagos to the east.

Taxonomy

The genus Pachycephala was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Vigors with the Australian golden whistler as the type species. The name is derived from Ancient Greek παχύς (pakhús), meaning "thick", and κεφαλή (kephalḗ), meaning "head".

There have been big changes to the species limits in the genus Pachycephala. In 2007 Walter Boles in the Handbook of the Birds of the World recognised 21 species in the genus but in 2025 AviList recognised 51 species.

The genus contains 51 species:

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Pachycephala:

An unidentified Pachycephala whistler was heard on May 14, 1994 at 1,000 meters ASL south of the summit of Camiguin in the Philippines, where the genus was not previously known to occur. It might have been an undescribed taxon, or simply a vagrant of a known species.

References

References

  1. Jønsson, K.A. ''et al''. (2014) [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1777/20131727.short Evidence of taxon cycles in an Indo-Pacific passerine bird radiation (Aves: Pachycephala)]. ''Proc. R. Soc. B''.
  2. Vigors, Nicholas Aylward. (1825). "Observations on the natural affinities that connect the orders and families of birds". Transactions of the Linnean Society of London.
  3. (1986). "Check-List of Birds of the World". Museum of Comparative Zoology.
  4. Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
  5. Boles, W.E.. (2007). "Handbook of the Birds of the World". Lynx Edicions.
  6. AviList Core Team. (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025".
  7. "Coracornis raveni - Avibase".
  8. "Colluricincla megarhyncha fortis - Avibase".
  9. Balete, Danilo S.; Tabaranza, Blas R. Jr. & Heaney, Lawrence R. (2006) [http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3158/0015-0754(2006)106%5B58:AACOTB%5D2.0.CO%3B2 An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Camiguin Island, Philippines]. ''[[Fieldiana Zoology. Fieldiana Zool.]] New Series'' '''106''': 58–72.

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pachycephalabird-genera