Aegothelidae
| Owlet-nightjars Temporal range: Early Miocene to present |
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| Barred owlet-nightjar | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Subclass: | Neornithes |
| Infraclass: | Neognathae |
| (unranked): | Cypselomorphae |
| Order: | Caprimulgiformes |
| Family: |
Aegothelidae Bonaparte, 1853 |
| Genus: |
Aegotheles Vigors & Horsfield, 1827 |
| Synonyms | |
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Megaegotheles |
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Megaegotheles
Owlet-nightjars are small crepuscular birds related to the nightjars and frogmouths. Most are native to New Guinea, but some species extend to Australia, the Moluccas, and New Caledonia. A flightless species from New Zealand is extinct. There is a single monotypic family Aegothelidae with the genus Aegotheles.
Owlet-nightjars are insectivores which hunt mostly in the air but sometimes on the ground; their soft plumage is a cryptic mixture of browns and paler shades, they have fairly small, weak feet (but larger and stronger than those of a frogmouth or a nightjar), a tiny bill that opens extraordinarily wide, surrounded by prominent whiskers. The wings are short, with 10 primaries and about 11 secondaries; the tail long and rounded.
A comprehensive 2003 study analyzing mtDNA sequences and ATPase subunit 8 suggests that 11 living species of owlet-nightjar should be recognized, as well as another that became extinct early in the second millennium AD.
The relationship between the owlet-nightjars and the (traditional) Caprimulgiformes has long been controversial and obscure and remains so today: in the 19th century they were regarded as a subfamily of the frogmouths, and they are still generally considered to be related to the frogmouths and/or the nightjars. It appears though that they are not so closely related to either as previously thought, and that the owlet-nightjars share a more recent common ancestor with the Apodiformes. As has been suggested on occasion since morphological studies of the cranium in the 1960s, they are thus considered a distinct order, Aegotheliformes. This, the caprimulgiform lineage(s), and the Apodiformes, are postulated to form a clade called Cypselomorphae, with the owlet-nightjars and the Apodiformes forming the clade Daedalornithes.
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Wikipedia