suboscine

English

A suboscine, Tyrannus melancholicus (tropical kingbird)

Etymology

From sub- +‎ oscine.

Adjective

suboscine (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to the passerine birds of the suborder Tyranni.

Noun

suboscine (plural suboscines)

1. Any of the passerine birds of suborder Tyranni, which includes broadbills, asities, pittas, antbirds and others.
   • 2007, Irene M. Pepperberg, “19: Emergence of Linguistic Communicetion”, in Caroline Lyon, Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, Angelo Cangelosi, editors, Emergence of Communication and Language, page 376:

     Crucial to my model, however, are two suboscines, one of which is the threewattled bellbird (Procnias tricarunculata), that do not quite fit into the current picture of oscine versus suboscine classification.

   • 2011, F. Keith Barker, “Phylogeny and Diversification of Modern Passerines”, in Gareth Dyke, Gary Kaiser, editors, Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds, page 244:

     Sequence data unequivocally support the paraphyly of suboscine passerines (Figure 9.5). This is not too surprising when it is considered that prior to Sibley's DNA hybridization work, which recovered suboscine monophyly, relationships of suboscines had been controversial on morphological grounds.

   • 2012, Darren Naish, “20: Birds”, in M. K. Brett-Surman, Thomas R. Holtz, James Orville Farlow, editors, The Complete Dinosaur, page 418:

     New Zealand wrens (Acanthisittidae) are the most basal passerines, suboscines are mostly South American, and most taxa originally included in the oscine group Corvida are Australasian.

Derived terms

• New World suboscine