Classification Study Of Several Birds Of Quondam Musciapinae

Muscicapidae is always the puzzle to the taxonomist of aves. Muscicapinae has been divided into four subfamilies, and then they are exalted to absolute families. Some disputations of the classification of Muscicapinae are studied in this paper, such as, how to classify Rhopophilus pekinensis, Panurus biarmicus and Luscinia. Specie is selected as the Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU). Twenty-one species of the family Muscicapinae and ten species of the comparison family have been classified by means of clustering analysis to answer the question. Twenty-seven quantitative twenty-two qualitative morphological characters from adult specimens in the thirty-one Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU) were selected. At the same time, SDS-PAGE of feather keratins of disputation birds of Muscicapinae is done, and the results are compared to the results of clustering analysis. At the end of this paper, some advice of the classification of Muscicapinae are proposed: the relation between Luscinia and Muscicapinae is closer than that between Luscinia and Turdinae, so it should be merged into Muscicapinae; the relation between Rhopophilus pekinensis s and Sylviinae is closer than that between it and Timaliine; Panurus biarmicus is further to the birds of Muscicapinae, so it may be exalted to a absolute family, but this need a further study.