Transcription
[Music] Well, hi there. This is a raven, which is really just a name that we stick on any members of the genus *Corvus* that are rather large. Smaller members are generally called crows or rooks, and this has nothing to do with how they're related. But no matter what you call them, members of the genus *Corvus* are amazing, if for no other reason than that they are super intelligent. They not only use tools, but they even make their own tools. Not to mention that they can learn to talk. They're right up there with many primates for intelligence. In fact, it is often estimated that they have greater problem-solving abilities than a seven-year-old human being. Such incredible birds. It makes sense that the whole family to which they belong, Corvidae, is named after them, and it is one of the coolest families of birds on the planet.
But it doesn't stop there, because the corvids are part of a much larger clade of birds that is also named after them, the Corvoidae, and it includes things like these. Now, during Philogeny February, we got to talk about an even bigger and super rad group of birds called the Taves. We did so because we wanted to talk about all of the birds of prey and how they're related to one another. And because they aren't very closely related to one another at all, that meant that we had to discuss the vast majority of all birds, like 13 major groups. It was a rad video, but one of those 13 groups, just one of them, the Passeriformes, they alone contain the majority of all bird species. Which means that we had very little time to dig into that group, especially because it doesn't contain any birds of prey that regularly grab things with their feet. No raptors, though, as part of the clade Maniraptora, I would argue that all, all birds are raptors anyway. We had to shoot through the Passeriformes, but I promised that I would start to dig into them soon, and that day has arrived for us to start, just a start, to dig in to the passerines. There are 140 families of passerine birds, but today we're going to talk about 10 of the families most closely related to the ravens. Which means that it will only take us about 14 videos to get through all of the passerines. And once we finish the passerines, we will be over halfway through the birds.
Later this year, we'll be releasing our first feature-length film. It will be a full tour of one of the two extant reptile lineages, the Lepidosauria, two ataras, snakes, and other lizards, all of them, every family. And given that we have already covered all of the turtles and crocodilians and the two basal-most lineages of birds, I reckon we'll be ready to put out a 9-hour video on all of the Archosauria, the other extant lineage of reptiles, here in just about 5 years when we finish up all the birds. So subscribe now if you don't want to miss that when it drops. And if you want for us to finish up even faster, please encourage me in the comments and consider supporting us on Patreon, because a full guide to all of the birds is an incredible undertaking. You might think that this is the age of mammals, but there are almost twice as many families and species of dinosaurs, actually, actual dinosaurs, alive today as there are mammals. Expect a feature film on all of the mammals long before we finish this dinosaur tour.
And I want to say thank you real quick to the sponsor of today's video, Raycon. I've been using these Raycon wireless earbuds for the last several months, and I can tell you, they are legitimately my favorite headphones that I've ever had. They're the only headphones I've ever owned where I don't leave home without them. I use them for all of my phone calls. I'm constantly listening to podcasts, YouTube. It is very rare that I am consuming any media or talking to anybody and not using my Raycon earbuds. They're just the best. The sound quality is excellent, really. I can't imagine how you would have better sound quality than this at any price, but they're actually very reasonably priced, which matters to me. They're really comfortable and they stay in my ear really, really well. Legitimately, if you guys are looking for headphones of any kind, especially earbuds, I cannot recommend anything more highly than Raycon, and the price is absolutely right. And if you want to save even more, you can go to buyraycon.com/clint right now and get 20% off of your Raycon purchase plus free shipping, which makes an already totally reasonably priced product that is excellent, even more reasonably priced and equally excellent. So go to buyraycon.com or go to the link down in the description and get yours today for 20% off.
Now, back to the video. Anyway, let's get right to it. Corvoidae, aka the smartest birds in the world. As I mentioned earlier, there are 10 families generally included in this clade, and one of the biggest debates about the relationships of those 10 families seems to have to do with these, the 31 species of drongos of the family Dicruridae, and how they are related to these, the 55 species of fantails, silky-tails, and their close relatives of the family Rhipiduridae. There seems to be a consensus that the Rhipiduridae are at least part of the outgroup to the other corvoids, the hagfish of corvoids, if you will. And if you don't know what I mean by the hagfish of corvoids, or you ever feel lost in these phylogeny videos, you should totally check out this video. But anyway, the Rhipids are the hagfish of corvids. But are they alone as the hagfish of corvoids? Or are the drongos more closely related to them than they are to the other corvoids? That seems to be the question. Interestingly, there seems to be a similar debate when it comes to hagfish and lampreys. So just like hagfish might not be alone as the hagfish of fishes, the Rhipids might not be alone as the hagfish of corvoids. Rhipidura is Greek for fan tail. This family is found in Australia, Asia, and the islands in between. These are somewhat small-bodied birds with long, unsurprisingly, fan-like tails. In some cases, the tail is longer than the rest of the bird, though the silky-tails have relatively short tails and look more like the birds of paradise that we will discuss later. They are often excellent aerial hunters, specializing in catching insects in flight. As such, they have bills similar to those of other aerial insect hunters like swifts and swallows, small triangular bills lined with sensory bristles called rictal bristles, like those found in their not-so-distant relatives, the owls. Their closest relatives may be the members of the family Dicruridae, or the family Dicruridae may be more closely related to all of the other corvoids than they are to the Rhipiduridae. If this is the case, the closest relatives of the Dicruridae would be all of the corvoids except for the Rhipiduridae, and the Dicruridae would be no more closely related to the Rhipiduridae than they are to any of the other corvoids. The most recent phylogenies I have found support the former hypothesis that the fantails have a buddy. So that is how we're going to put them, but don't be shocked if that changes in the future. And their apparent sister family, who may turn out not to be any more closely related to them than they are to any of the other corvoids, are therefore the drongos. The drongos from Africa, Asia, and Australia, and the islands in between. And the drongos are a really cool group in their own right. They're generally dark in color. They stand much more upright than do the fantails, and their tails tend to fork and often sport elaborate ornamentation. The word Dicruridae even means forked tail. Like the fantails, they hunt in flight and they also eat insects. Unlike fantails, they sometimes eat other birds, which partially explains their very different bill morphology. But my favorite way that many drongos find food is by imitating alarm calls. They will imitate the alarm calls of other birds and mammals when they discover an animal with food, causing the other animal to flee from the danger the alarm call usually indicates. And when that animal flees for its life, leaving its food behind, guess who eats it? The boy who cried wolf, that's who. They can imitate up to 51 different alarm calls. It's insane, and the first real glimpse into the work smarter, not harder attributes of corvoids that we're going to see come up time and time again in this group. Crazy, isn't it?
There's really only one more major discrepancy that I've seen come up between recent corvoid phylogenies, and that has to do with the placement of this group, the more than 100 species of shrike-bills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-jays of the family Monarchidae, often collectively called the monarchs, also found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and, um, everywhere in between. They are either the next most distantly related group of corvoids after the fork-tails and the fantails, or they are the closest relatives of the Ifrit and the birds of paradise that we will discuss next. Because the most recent phylogenies support the former hypothesis that they are the next most distantly related group from all of the remaining corvoids, again, we're going to go with that one, but don't be shocked if this changes as we learn more. Monarchs, like all of the corvoids that we've discussed to this point, are found in Asia and Australia, as well as the islands in between, and like the drongos, they're also found in Africa. Given that all of the basal members of this clade exist in this same basic region, that really paints a picture about where in the world the corvoid lineage originated. These basal-most groups are all very distantly related to one another. Their similarities, therefore, both genetic and geographic, are more likely to represent the attributes of the ancestral corvoids than are similarities between more closely related groups within the clade. If you have any questions about that, I would love to discuss it more in the comments. Monarchs are another small-bodied, long-tailed group of insect eaters. Unlike drongos, they generally do not have a forked tail, and their bills are generally longer and broader than those of fantails, so you should be able to distinguish them.
The next most distantly related group of corvoids, which may or may not be the closest living relatives to the monarchs, but we're saying not, are the aforementioned Ifrit and the birds of paradise. The blue-capped Ifrit is the only, only remaining species of the family Ifritidae, a living fossil, if you will. They are found exclusively in New Guinea. Unlike guinea pigs, which are not found anywhere near New Guinea, you can easily identify them if you're in New Guinea by their cap coloration. They have a frizzy tuck haircut, except it's metallic blue, hence the name. It reminds me of the rings of the blue-ringed octopus, which is pretty cool. And it is good to be able to identify them because they're poisonous. Yeah, their feathers and other tissues are often laden with paralysis-inducing toxins that they likely sequester from beetles in their diets. So that blue ring is potentially aposematic coloration, and possibly the origins of the expression, "I really blew it," famous last words after reading a blue-capped Ifrit. Their closest relatives are the 45 or so species of birds of paradise from Australia, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the surrounding islands of the family Paradisaeidae. And these birds are spectacular. We, we could easily make a whole video just about them. Males tend to have extremely extravagant plumage and coloration, though not all species. Their bills range from very much like those of corvids, like crows, to long and decurved, like that of a honeycreeper. And their mating displays are, in a word, spectacular. Let's just watch a few for a moment.
[Music] Incredible. And that brings us to the less controversial clade of corvoids and the final five families, including the corvids, which are all more closely related to one another than they are to anything that we've discussed to this point. So even though we've already discussed a number of rad and super intelligent birds, if you're here for corvids, well, everything from this point on is more like corvids than what we've covered so far. And the most distantly related family within this clade is the family Corcoracidae, the two species of Australian mud nesters, the White-winged Chough and the Apostlebird. I'll bet you can guess where they're found, but I'll narrow it down to three options for you and I'll let you try to figure it out yourself. They are from East L.A., most easily, or Australia. You can go ahead and make your guesses down in the comments. I'll also let you guess what they make their nests out of: mud, Legos, or Silly Putty. It's one of those three. White-winged Choughs look a lot like grackles, black with long tails and long, slightly decurved bills. Apostlebirds look similar but are gray with a more finch-like beak, and both are likely to be spotted in groups. And like many of the remaining corvoids, they spend a considerable amount of time on the ground instead of up in trees.
The next most distantly related family within this clade are the two species of melampittas of the family Melampittidae, found in New Guinea. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're getting pretty deep into this group, and we still haven't left this region. Most of the corvoids are still restricted to the warmer continents starting and ending with A, and the islands in between. Melampittas are black, ground-dwelling birds with fairly short tails, and both species are fairly shy and are poorly studied. And just like that, we've made it to the corvids. Though of the three remaining families, the corvids and their two closest relatives, an argument can be made that the corvids aren't even the coolest ones, at least not the most metal. So while they may not be the most hardcore of the remaining three families, they are the most distantly related members of this final clade. Now, crows, ravens, and rooks are pretty obviously corvids. And ravens are the largest of all passerine birds. Like I said at the beginning of this video, there really is no phylogenetic reason as to why a corvid of the genus *Corvus* is called a raven, a crow, or a rook. It really just has to do with their size, which can vary, though they're all pretty big. But are they intelligent? Extreme intelligence, even? Problem-solving intelligence, not just tool-use intelligence, tool-making intelligence. I mean, watch this.
[Music] Did you see that? But that's just the beginning. Watch this.
Not only is it showing that it understands water displacement, but it chooses to use the solid and not the hollow objects to displace the water. How many children do you think would figure it out that quickly? Hooded crows use breadcrumbs to attract fish to eat. They go fishing. Some members of the genus have brain regions that are associated with higher-level intelligence that are on par with chimpanzees and even humans, and that are much more developed than those found in other tailless monkeys like gibbons. They're insanely intelligent. They remember faces and locations where they stored food in the distant past. When she looks at you, you can see she's working things out. We definitely need to make a video just about the intelligence of corvids. But so far, we've only discussed one genus of corvid, but *Corvus* is only about a third of the family. It also includes a lot of birds that we call magpies, even though they aren't one another's closest relatives. For example, this magpie is more closely related to crows and ravens than it is to this magpie. And that magpie, despite not being closely related to crows at all, is more closely related to crows than it is to these magpies, which themselves are more closely related to crows than they are to this magpie. It also includes lots of birds called jays, which are just as big of a mess as magpies, and in many cases are more closely related to some magpies than they are to other jays, or than those magpies are to other magpies, because the names in this family mean diddly squat. There is even a bird called a magpie-jay in the group. There's a clade of tree-pies that would be just fine if it didn't have two species called magpies right in the middle of it. And there are a few other groups with other names in there too. There are about 135 total species, and this is the first family we have discussed to have moved out of the region of warm continents starting and ending with A. In fact, they are not well represented in Africa or Australia, but have spread around the globe, and in some of the harshest non-polar regions anywhere, corvids, uh, found a way. Life finds a way. No big deal. And if any clade of birds was ever going to figure out how to conquer the globe, it's this one.
But they aren't the only corvoids outside of the ancestral range of the clade. And while they are arguably the coolest of all living dinosaur lineages, they aren't even the most metal of all corvoids. That would be these, the 34 species of shrikes of the family Laniidae, meaning butcher, and helping explain why these seemingly harmless little birds are often known as butcher birds. But why is this pretty little sparrow creature given such a gruesome title? Well, this man is King Edward I. Not a particularly intimidating specimen. Beautiful curls, though. If you've ever heard of him, it was likely by the name of Edward the Longshanks. And if you know one thing that he did, it is probably that he had William Wallace dragged through the streets of London, disemboweled and otherwise heinously mutilated, strangled and hanged all while he was alive, then decapitated and drawn and quartered. His head was then dipped in tar and put on a spike on London Bridge. His arms and legs displayed in each of the four corners of the kingdom. If I said that Edward the Longshanks was a butcher, would you agree with me? Well, this little birdie can't possibly deserve the same title as the Longshanks, can it? I mean, this bird doesn't look any more menacing than a house sparrow. Well, till you get a closer look at its beak, which has a hook and a tomial tooth like that of a falcon, which is more closely related to corvoids than it is to hawks and eagles. But that beak might be your first indicator that these birds are not as harmless as they appear at first glance. But then you start to look around. Barbed wire fence, a thorn on a tree, a cactus spike. Seemingly everywhere you look, you see animals impaled on spikes: grasshoppers, mice, lizards, birds. Like Edward the Longshanks, they hated every living creature in the area. But you don't see King Edward or any Englishman at all anywhere around. All you see is that happy little shrike sitting on a tree, impaling something on a spike, and then tearing it to pieces like the little monsters that they are. Both males and females will impale prey. They don't use their feet to kill and dismember things like the raptors do, but males especially seem to decorate their entire territories with corpses. Most shrikes are found in Africa, Asia, and Europe, though there are two species in North America as well. So it's possible that this clade, which includes the corvids and the shrikes, moved out of the historical corvoid range before the split between the corvids and the shrikes.
And the closest relatives of the shrikes, the crested jayshrikes of the family Platylophidae, which is also called the crested shrike-jay. It is the only member of its family, but it, it isn't a jay. And I recognize that most jays aren't jays either, but this isn't even a corvid. Jay-shrike makes more sense than shrike-jay, since these are the closest relatives of shrikes and are basically the hagfish of shrikes. So you can call them shrikes if you want to, but they certifiably are not jays, despite the headwear. These guys are located in about all of the parts of Asia I most want to visit. So if you want to see jayshrikes in a video in the future, please consider supporting us on Patreon. It is a black bird with a light spot that looks like, kind of like a bony fish's operculum on the side of its head, and they have a big crest on their heads as well. Like many of the corvids that we call jays, they do have hooked bills like those of their cousins, the shrikes, and it is a predator, though mostly just of insects. That said, I don't believe that they practice the more Longshanks and butchery of their cousins.
And that brings us to the end of the Corvoidae. Which group should we cover next? Next, as always, like and subscribe, and we hope to see you real soon. We just spent, like, I have no idea even how long this video is going to be, 25-plus minutes, discussing if all the primates, including humans, disappeared from the planet, who would fill our shoes? And it led to quite the conversation. That'll be available to all of our stinking red patrons on Patreon as part of our way of saying thank you for all that you guys do for us. Raccoons? That good little hands, yeah. And they're doing well around human civilization. Yep. Yeah, I mean, shoot, they can, they, they got digits, they got fingers, they can take over the computers once we die. Yep. Yep. Yep. Owen was exp. Birds would just be pecking at the keyboard, but these guys would be using all five digits. Corvids, uh, found a way. My socks. Life finds a way. No big deal. Holy. All right, did you just remember that or were you planning that? I put these socks on and I was like, holy cow, I talked about that. Today's [Music] video.