The second clade includes the parotias and the King of Saxony bird-of-paradise. The study identified five clades within the family, and placed the split between the first clade, which contains the monogamous manucodes and paradise-crow, and all the other birds-of-paradise, to be 10 million years ago. Ī 2009 study examining the mitochondrial DNA of all species to examine the relationships within the family and to its nearest relatives estimated that the family emerged 24 million years ago, earlier than previous estimates. The closest evolutionary relatives of the birds-of-paradise are the crow and jay family Corvidae, the monarch flycatchers Monarchidae and the Australian mudnesters Struthideidae. Today while both are treated as being part of the Australasian lineage Corvida, the two are now thought to be only distantly related. For many years the birds-of-paradise were treated as being closely related to the bowerbirds. The family Paradisaeidae was introduced (as Paradiseidae) in 1825 with Paradisaea as the type genus by the English naturalist William John Swainson. The birds-of-paradise have a variety of breeding systems, ranging from monogamy to lek-type polygamy.Ī number of species are threatened by hunting and habitat loss.
The diet of all species is dominated by fruit and to a lesser extent arthropods. For the most part they are confined to dense rainforest habitat. The males of these species tend to have very long, elaborate feathers extending from the beak, wings, tail or head. The members of this family are perhaps best known for the plumage of the males of the species, the majority of which are sexually dimorphic. The majority of species are found in eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and eastern Australia. The birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae of the order Passeriformes.
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