July 08, 2004
Taxonomy
My 11 year old went on a bike ride today. He said that a cardinal flew in front of him. He joked that it was jay-walking. That led to his question: Are blue jays and cardinals of the same family? (He pointed out that their "crowns" tilted backwards look similar.)
Well the answer is no and yes. Jays and Cardinals are of the same order - Passeriformes; but Jays are of the family Corvidae and Cardinals are of the family Cardinalidae.
Blue Jays are apparently more closely related to Magpies, Crows and Ravens who are also of the family Corvidae.
What's the difference between an order and a family? Apparently orders are typically made up of six or seven families.
For all of you baseball fans, Orioles are also of the order Passeriformes (or perching bird) but of the family Icteridae. UPDATE:According to the taxonomy article Orioles are of the Emberizidae family. The orchard oriole is of the Icteridae family; perhaps, despite its name, its not really an Oriole.
And if you're really a baseball fan, I believe that Pat Hentgen is the only player to play for all three of the bird teams. I guess he's certainly of the Passeriformes order; though I'd be hard pressed to identify his family.
Incidentally the Cornell Lab of Ornithology appears to have a tremendously informative website. Other websites that helped have been the Dictionary of Animals and Forestry Images.
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The Baltimore Oriole and the Orchard Oriole are in the same family. In fact, they are so closely related, they are in the same genus, Icterus. Icterus is the type genus of the family Icteridae.
The family Icteridae includes the orioles, bobolinks, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, and meadowlarks. A family is a group of related genera.
Not all taxonomists agree about how to organize the species and genera into families. There are taxonomists who rely mostly on DNA, others who rely on morphological characters, others use still other methods. Some taxonomists are 'lumpers', others are 'splitters.' Hence, you'll see different classifications by different authors. But the Baltimore and Orchard Orioles are so similar (in the same genus) that they have to be in the same family. Some would put them both in Emberizidae, some both in Icteridae. You probably saw the Baltimore's classification under one author's scheme, the Orchard under another's scheme.
Posted by: John at July 9, 2004 04:57 PMThank you. I thought, though, that the Baltimore Oriole no longer existed as an separate species and had been co-opted by the Northern Oriole.
Posted by: David Gerstman at July 10, 2004 11:32 PM