Everything about Caprimulgidae totally explained
Nightjars are medium-sized
nocturnal birds with long wings, short legs and very short bills that usually nest on the ground. Nightjars are sometimes referred to as
goatsuckers from the mistaken belief that they suck milk from goats (the
Latin for goatsucker is
Caprimulgus). Some
North American species are named as
nighthawks.
Nightjars are found around the world. They are mostly active in the late evening and early morning or at night, and feed predominantly on moths and other large flying insects.
Most have small feet, of little use for walking, and long pointed wings. Their soft plumage is cryptically coloured to resemble bark or leaves. Some species, unusually for birds, perch along a branch, rather than across it. This helps to conceal them during the day.
The
Common Poorwill,
Phalaenoptilus nuttallii is unique as a bird that undergoes a form of hibernation, becoming torpid and with a much reduced body temperature for weeks or months, although other nightjars can enter a state of torpor for shorter periods.
Nightjars lay one or two patterned eggs directly onto bare ground. It has been suggested that nightjars will move their eggs and chicks from the nesting site in the event of danger by carrying them in their mouths. This suggestion has been repeated many times in ornithology books, but while this may accidentally happen, surveys of nightjar research have found very little evidence to support this idea.
Systematics
Traditionally, nightjars have been divided into two subfamilies: the
Caprimulginae, or typical nightjars with about 70 species, and the
Chordeilinae, or
nighthawks of the New World with about 9 species. The two groups are similar in most respects, but the typical nightjars have rictal bristles, longer bills, and softer plumage. In their pioneering
DNA-DNA hybridisation work,
Sibley and Ahlquist found that the genetic difference between the eared-nightjars and the typical nightjars was, in fact, greater than that between the typical nightjars and the nighthawks of the New World. Accordingly, they placed the eared-nightjars in a separate
family:
Eurostopodidae.
Subsequent work, both morphological and genetic, has provided support for the separation of the typical and the eared-nightjars, and some authorities have adopted this Sibley-Ahlquist recommendation, and also the more far-reaching one to group all the
owls (traditionally Strigiformes) together in the
Caprimulgiformes. The listing below retains a more orthodox arrangement, but recognises the eared-nightjars as a separate group. For more detail and an alternative classification scheme, see
Caprimulgiformes and
Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy.
Subfamily Chordeilinae (nighthawks)
Also see a list of nightjars, sortable by common and binomial names.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Caprimulgidae'.
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