Hydropsalis, WAGLER, 1832

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 : 540

HYDROPSALIS WAGLER, 1832

Type species

Hydropsalis torquata J.F. Gmelin, 1789 .

Definition

The clade containing H. torquata and all species that share a more recent common ancestor with H. torquata than with Nyctidromus albicollis , N. anthonyi , N. derbyanus , N. hirundinaceus , N. merrilli , N. nigrescens , Lurocalis rufiventris , L. semitorquatus , Nyctiprogne latifascia , N. leucopyga , and N. vielliardi , or with species in other nightjar genera such as Antrostomus , Caprimulgus , Chordeiles , Eurostopodus , Gactornis , Lyncornis , Macrodipteryx , Nyctiphrynus , Phalaenoptilus , Podager , Siphonorhis , or Veles .

Included species

Hydropsalis albicauda (Lawrence, 1875) , Hydropsalis anomalus (Gould, 1837) , Hydropsalis candicans (Pelzeln, 1867) , Hydropsalis cayennensis (J.F. Gmelin, 1789) , Hydropsalis climacocerca (Tschudi, 1844) , Hydropsalis decussatus (Tschudi, 1844) , Hydropsalis forcipata (Nitzsch, 1840) , Hydropsalis heterurus (Todd, 1915) , Hydropsalis longirostris (Bonaparte, 1825) , Hydropsalis lyra (Bonaparte, 1850) , Hydropsalis maculicaudus (Lawrence, 1862) , Hydropsalis parvulus (Gould, 1837) , Hydropsalis roraimae (Chapman, 1929) , Hydropsalis ruficervix (P.L. Sclater, 1866) , Hydropsalis segmentata (Cassin, 1849) , Hydropsalis torquata (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) , and Hydropsalis whitelyi (Salvin, 1885) .

Comments

Genetic evidence in this study supports a large clade that contains members of five genera: Caprimulgus , Eleothreptus , Hydropsalis , Macropsalis , and Uropsalis ( Fig. 7 ). The name Caprimulgus cannot be used for any New World taxa, as the type species is Caprimulgus europaeus (Linnaeus, 1758) , a member of the crown Old World radiation. The species in this clade, traditionally placed in Caprimulgus , do not form a monophyletic assemblage, and cannot be placed in a single genus unless membership is extended to the other four New World genera. Therefore, in order to avoid creating additional new genera to maintain the monophyly of Hydropsalis itself, we conclude that the simplest and preferable solution is to move the species of Eleothreptus , Hydropsalis , Macropsalis , and Uropsalis into a single genus, along with the previous members of Caprimulgus . Hydropsalis is the oldest available name. Unlike Han et al. (2010), we do not propose to move members of Lurocalis , Nyctidromus , and Nyctiprogne into Hydropsalis .

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).