Cnemarchus
Genus of birds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cnemarchus is a genus of South American birds in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae.
| Cnemarchus | |
|---|---|
| |
| Red-rumped bush tyrant (Cnemarchus erythropygius) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Tyrannidae |
| Genus: | Cnemarchus Ridgway, 1905 |
| Type species | |
| Taenioptera erythropygia red-rumped bush tyrant Sclater, 1853 | |
The two member of this genus are elongated, upright-perching flycatchers that share similar tail patterns. They are found at high-altitudes.
Taxonomy
The genus Cnemarchus was introduced in 1905 by the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway with the red-rumped bush tyrant as the type species. The name combines the Ancient Greek knēmos meaning "mountain-slope" with arkhos meaning "ruler" or "chief".[1]
This genus formerly contained only the red-rumped bush tyrant. Molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2020 found that the red-rumped bush tyrant was a sister to the rufous-webbed bush tyrant in the monotypic genus Polioxolmis. The two species had diverged around 4.5 million years ago.[2][3] Based on these results, the genus Polioxolmis was merged into Cnemarchus placing both species in the genus Cnemarchus.[4][5]
The genus therefore contains the following two species:[5]
- Red-rumped bush tyrant (Cnemarchus erythropygius)
- Rufous-webbed bush tyrant (Cnemarchus rufipennis)
