Starlings are small to medium-sizedpasserine (perching)birds known for the often dark, glossy iridescent sheen of their plumage; their complex vocalizations including mimicking; and their distinctive, often elaborateswarming behavior, known asmurmuration.
All members of the familySturnidae, commonly called sturnids, are known collectively as starlings. The Sturnidae are named for the genusSturnus, which in turn comes from theLatin word for starling,sturnus. The family contains 128 species which are divided into 36 genera. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are calledmynas, and many African species are known asglossy starlings because of theiriridescentplumage. Starlings are native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as northern Australia and the islands of the tropicalPacific. Several European and Asian species have been introduced to these areas, as well asNorth America,Hawaii, andNew Zealand, where they generally compete for habitats with native birds and are considered to beinvasive species. The starling species familiar to most people in Europe and North America is thecommon starling, and throughout much ofAsia and the Pacific.
Having strong feet, their flight is strong and direct, and they are verygregarious. Their preferred habitat is fairly open country, they eatinsects andfruit, and most species nest in holes and lay blue or whiteeggs. Several species live around human habitation and are effectivelyomnivores. Many species search for prey such asgrubs by "open-bill probing", that is, forcefully opening the bill after inserting it into a crevice, thus expanding the hole and exposing the prey; this behaviour is referred to by the German verbzirkeln (pronounced[ˈtsɪʁkl̩n]).[1]
Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, includingcar alarms and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals by their calls and have been the subject of research into the evolution ofhuman language.[2]
Starlings are medium-sizedpasserines.[3] The shortest-bodied species isKenrick's starling (Poeoptera kenricki), at 15 cm (6 in), but the lightest-weight species isAbbott's starling (Poeoptera femoralis), which is 34 g (1+1⁄4 oz). The largest starling, going on standard measurements and perhaps weight, is theNias hill myna (Gracula robusta). This species can measure up to 36 cm (14 in), and in domestication they can weigh up to 400 g (14 oz). Rivaling the prior species in bulk if not dimensions, themynas of the genusMino are also large, especially theyellow-faced (M. dumontii) andlong-tailed mynas (M. kreffti). The longest species in the family is thewhite-necked myna (Streptocitta albicollis), which can measure up to50 cm (19+1⁄2 in), although around 60% in thismagpie-like species is comprised by its very long tail.[4]
Less sexual dimorphism is seen inplumage, but with only 25 species showing such differences between the two sexes. The plumage of the starling is often brightly coloured due toiridescence; this colour is derived from the structure of the feathers, not from any pigment. Some species of Asian starling havecrests or erectile feathers on the crest. Other ornamentation includes elongated tail feathers and brightly coloured bare areas on the face. These colours can be derived from pigments, or as in theBali myna, structural colour, caused by light scattering off parallel collagen fibers. The irises of many species are red and yellow, although those of younger birds are much darker.[3]
Thechestnut-tailed starling is a partial migrant over much of the east of its range, but its movements are poorly understood.
Starlings inhabit a wide range of habitats from theArctic Circle to theEquator. The only habitats they do not typically occupy are very dry sandydeserts. The family is naturally absent from the Americas and from large parts of Australia, but it is present over the majority of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The genusAplonis has also spread widely across the islands of the Pacific, reachingPolynesia,Melanesia, andMicronesia[3] (in addition one species in the genusMino has reached theSolomon Islands[5]). Also, a species of this genus is the only starling found in northern Australia.[3]
Asian species are most common in evergreen forests; 39 species found in Asia are predominantly forest birds as opposed to 24 found in more open or human modified environments. In contrast to this, African species are more likely to be found in open woodlands and savannah; 33 species are open-area specialists compared to 13 true forest species. The high diversity of species found in Asia and Africa is not matched by Europe, which has one widespread (and very common) species and two more restricted species. TheEuropean starling is both highly widespread and extremely eclectic in its habitat, occupying most types of open habitat. Like many other starling species, it has also adapted readily to human-modified habitat, including farmland, orchards, plantations, and urban areas.[3]
The European starling was purposely introduced to North America in the 1870s through the 1890s by multipleacclimatisation societies, organizations dedicated to introducing European flora and fauna into North America for cultural and economic reasons.[6] A persistent story alleges thatEugene Schieffelin, chairman of theAmerican Acclimatization Society, decided all birds mentioned byWilliam Shakespeare should be in North America, leading to the introduction of the starling to the U.S.; however, this claim is more fiction than fact.[7][6] While Schieffelin and other members of the society did release starlings inCentral Park in 1890, the birds had already been in the U.S. since at least the mid-1870s, and Schieffelin was not inspired to do so by Shakespeare's works.[6]
Starlings imitate a variety of avian species and have a repertoire of about 15–20 distinct imitations. They also imitate a few sounds other than those of wild birds. The calls of abundant species or calls that are simple in frequency structure and show little amplitude modulation are preferentially imitated. Dialects of mimicked sounds can be local.[3]
The Starling's sociality is particularly evident in their roosting behavior; in the nonbreeding season, some roosts can number in the thousands.[3]
A highly social bird, most starlings associate in flocks of varying sizes throughout the year and are widely known for a distinctive, often dramaticswarming behavior known as murmuration[8] — a simultaneously synchronized and seemingly random flock movement characterized by sudden, erratic direction changes without an observable leader.[9]
The sharp pushing, pulling, diving, pulsating and swooping of the flock in response to the individual movements may confuse and discourage predators such as falcons, providing a collective protection.[10] The termmurmuration derives from the low, indistinct sounds of a dense flock's wings — i.e., themurmor.[9]
Initial study by ornithologistEdmund Selous (1887-1934) sought to explain the murmurmation of starlings through the idea ofthought-transference.[11] By 2013, physicists in Italy along with mechanical and aerospace engineers working withPrinceton University, determined that no single bird could control a flock, and certainly not the movements of more than a thousand birds. Researchers used a computer simulation to determine that each bird synchronized with its seven closest neighbors, creating overlapping groups that communicated their movements — focusing on three simple parameters: attraction, repulsion and angular alignment.[11] Thus the flock moves as each individual bird synchronizes with its nearest group.[9] Researchers also confirmed that a particular shape to the flock formation worked most efficiently for data accuracy — and specifically in starlings, a pancake shape. Thinner, thicker or spherical shapes did not improve performance, rather optimal performance was related to a pancake flock shape.[12]
They noted that "information moves across the flock very quickly and with nearly no degradation,"[13] describing it as "a high signal-to-noise ratio"[13] enabled by a bird's very high temporal resolution: they can receive and process certain information more quickly than humans and can "see faster" than humans."[11] Unlike thechildren's game of telephone where a message is sequentially passed from person to person and very quickly loses information, researchers determined that almost no information is lost across a starling flock.[13]
Starling murmurations can last from a few seconds up to 45 minutes; can involve few birds or up to tens of thousands;[10] may include other species of starlings or species from other families; and sometimes form abstract dramatic shapes, patterns or subtle gradations.[10] InDenmark, where murmurations have been estimated to involve a million starlings, the phenomenon is called the Black Sun, orSort sol in Danish.[14] In Ireland, starlings’ numbers are boosted during winter, as migrating flocks arrive from breeding grounds around Western Europe and Scandinavia.
Micronesian starlings have been observed feeding on the eggs ofseabirds.Two starlings and an American robin (right) on grape arbor: The American robin is plucking a grape. Robins and starlings cause serious damage to ripening grapes in California and elsewhere.
The diets of the starlings are usually dominated by fruits and insects. Many species are important dispersers of seeds, in Asia and Africa, for example,white sandalwood andIndian banyan. In addition to trees, they are also important dispersers ofparasiticmistletoes. In South Africa, thered-winged starling is an important disperser of theintroducedAcacia cyclops. Starlings have been observed feeding on fermenting over-ripe fruit, which led to the speculation that they might become intoxicated by the alcohol.[3]
Laboratory experiments on European starlings have found that they have disposal enzymes that allow them to break down alcohol very quickly.[15] In addition to consuming fruits, many starlings also consumenectar. The extent to which starlings are importantpollinators is unknown, but at least some are, such as theslender-billed starling of alpine East Africa, which pollinatesgiantlobelias.[3]
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2019)
The starling family Sturnidae was introduced (as Sturnidia) by FrenchpolymathConstantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815.[16][17]The starlings belong to thesuperfamily Muscicapoidea, together withthrushes,flycatchers andchats, as well asdippers, which are quite distant relatives, andMimidae (thrashers and mockingbirds). The latter are apparently the Sturnidae's closest living relatives, replace them in theAmericas, and have a rather similar but more solitary lifestyle. They aremorphologically quite similar too—a partlyalbinistic specimen of a mimid, mislabelled as to suggest an Old World origin, was for many decades believed to represent an extinct starling (seeRodrigues starling for details).
Theoxpeckers are sometimes placed here as asubfamily, but the weight of evidence has shifted towards granting them full family status as a morebasal member of the Sturnidae-Mimidae group, derived from an early expansion into Africa.
Usually, the starlings are considered a family, as is done here. Sibley & Monroe[18] included the mimids in the family and demoted the starlings totribe rank, asSturnini. This treatment was used by Zuccon et al.[19] However, the grouping of Sibley & Monroe is overly coarse due to methodological drawbacks of theirDNA-DNA hybridization technique and most of their proposed revisions of taxonomicrank have not been accepted (see for exampleCiconiiformes). The all-inclusive Sturnidae grouping conveys little information aboutbiogeography, and obscures the evolutionary distinctness of the three lineages. Establishing a valid name for theclade consisting of Sibley/Monroe's "pan-Sturnidae" would nonetheless be desirable to contrast them with the other major lineages of Muscicapoidea.
Starlings probably originated in the general area ofEast Asia, perhaps towards the southwestern Pacific, as inferred by the number ofplesiomorphic lineages to occur there. Expansion into Africa appears to have occurred later, as mostderived forms are found there. An alternative scenario would be African origin for the entire "sturnoid" group,[19] with the oxpeckers representing an ancientrelict and the mimids arriving in South America. This is contradicted by the North American distribution of the mostbasal Mimidae.[19][20]
As the fossil record is limited to quiteRecent forms, the proposedEarly Miocene (about 25–20Mya) divergence dates for the "sturnoids" lineages must be considered extremely tentative. Given the overall evidence for the origin of mostPasseri families in the first half of theMiocene, it appears to be not too far off the mark, however.[19]
As of 2007,[update] recent studies[19][20] identified two majorclades of this family, corresponding to the generally drab, often striped, largish "atypicalmynas" and other mainly Asian-Pacific lineages, and the often smaller, sometimes highlyapomorphictaxa which are most common in Africa and the Palearctic, usually have metallic coloration, and in a number of species also brightcarotinoid plumage colors on the underside. Inside this latter group, there is a clade consisting of species which, again, are usually not too brightly colored, and which consists of the "typical" myna-Sturnus assemblage.
ThePhilippine creepers, a single genus of three species oftreecreeper-like birds, appear to be highlyapomorphic members of the more initial radiation of the Sturnidae.[19] While this may seem odd at first glance, their placement has always been contentious. In addition,biogeography virtually rules out a close relationship of Philippine creepers and treecreepers, as neither the latter nor their close relatives seem to have ever reachedWallacea, let alone thePhilippines. Nonetheless, their inclusion in the Sturnidae is not entirely final and eventually, they may remain a separate family.
Genus sequence follows traditional treatments. This is apparently not entirely correct, withScissirostrum closer toAplonis than toGracula, for example, andAcridotheres among the most advanced genera. Too few taxa have yet been studied as regards their relationships, however, thus a change in the sequence has to wait for further studies.
As of 2023, the review by Lovette & Rubenstein (2008) is the most recent work on the phylogeny of the group.[21] This taxonomy is also based on the order of theIOC.[22]
TheextinctMascarene starlings were formerly of uncertain relationships, but are now thought to belong to the Oriental-Australasian clade, being allied with theBali myna.[22] However, while the two more recent species (Fregipilus andNecropsar) have been classified, the prehistoricCryptopsar has not.
^Prinzinger, R.; Hakimi G.A. (1996). "Alcohol resorption and alcohol degradation in the European StarlingSturnus vulgaris".Journal für Ornithologie.137 (3):319–327.doi:10.1007/BF01651072.S2CID31680169.
^Bock, Walter J. (1994).History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 222. New York: American Museum of Natural History. pp. 157, 252.hdl:2246/830.
^Sibley, Charles Gald; Monroe, Burt L. Jr. (1990).Distribution and Taxonomy of the Birds of the World: A Study in Molecular Evolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-04969-5.
^abcdefZuccon, Dario; Cibois, Alice; Pasquet, Eric; Ericson, Per G.P. (2006). "Nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data reveal the major lineages of starlings, mynas and related taxa".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.41 (2):333–344.Bibcode:2006MolPE..41..333Z.doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.05.007.PMID16806992.
^abCibois, A.; Cracraft, J. (2004). "Assessing the passerine 'tapestry': phylogenetic relationships of the Muscicapoidea inferred from nuclear DNA sequences".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.32 (1):264–273.doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2003.12.002.PMID15186812.
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