Regulidae Kinglets
Version: 1.0 — Published March 4, 2020
Introduction
The kinglets are tiny, energetic songbirds of northern temperate treetops. They glean insects from bark crevices, twigs, and leaf clusters, often hovering into overhanging vegetation to snatch a prey item they have spotted from below. They often forage in flocks of their own or other species, giving high sibilant calls that are hard to localize. In the hand, these birds are very delicate, with long, slender legs and toes, and a most distinctive single feather on either side of the bill that covers the naris. Like a less extreme example of the New Zealand wrens, kinglets are off on their own, clearly not corvoids, but not clearly close to any of the other passerines in the huge oscine group.
Habitat
Kinglet species tend to prefer coniferous forests, although they occupy a wide variety of forested habitats, especially during migration and during the non-breeding season. Species or subspecies that live on islands without natural conifers prefer laurels and heath.
Diet and Foraging
Kinglets are primarily insectivorous, taking insect eggs, pupae, larvae, and assorted adult insects and other arthropods, and sometimes pollen as well. When insects are scarce, kinglets will eat fruits and seeds.
Breeding
All species of kinglets are monogamous with biparental care. Kinglets build deep cup-shaped nests that are nearly globular, with only a small, narrow opening at the top. Nests are suspended from a branch, and most incorporate moss and lichen bound by spiderwebs on the outside; they are lined with hair, fur, and feathers of other species, often with feathers totally concealing the nest contents from above. Kinglets lay 4 to 13 eggs, with clutch size generally increasing with latitude. In most regulids, only the female builds the nest; however, in some the male helps a great deal. Only the female incubates the eggs in all species, and in some, the male provisions her while she does so. Incubation takes about 15 days, and both parents feed the chicks. The chicks leave the nest about 17 to 22 days after they hatch, and the fledglings are fed, usually by the male, for up to three weeks after fledging.
Conservation Status
No regulid species faces immediate conservation concerns.
Systematics History
The kinglets here are placed in their own superfamily, Reguloidea (Alström et al. 2014). The position of Regulidae has long baffled taxonomists; occasionally kinglets were placed in Sylviidae sensu lato, and more recently as a family within Sylvioidea. Recent molecular studies, however, have found that the kinglets represent an ancient lineage within Passerida with no clear affinities to any one group (Barker et al. 2004, Johansson et al. 2008b, Alström et al. 2014). Two recent large-scale studies do not resolve this relationship; one suggests that Regulidae is an old lineage related equally distantly to the superfamilies Sylvioidea, Muscicapoidea, Certhioidea, and Bombycilloidea (Alström et al. 2014), and the other suggests a possible sister relationship with Bombycilloidea (Barker 2014) with these two groups sister to the passeroid radiation. Until the relationships are further clarified, it seems prudent to keep the kinglets in their own superfamily.
Conservation Status
Least Concern |
100%
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Near Threatened |
0%
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Vulnerable |
0%
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Endangered |
0%
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Critically Endangered |
0%
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Extinct in the Wild |
0%
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Extinct |
0%
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Not Evaluated |
0%
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Data Deficient |
0%
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Unknown |
0%
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Data provided by IUCN (2023) Red List. More information