^* 5 |\itj: \\,sl . Su-^v/c 3 3 FIELDIANA • ZOOLOGY Published by FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 51 January 30, 1967 No. 3 The Flower-Adapted Tongue of a TiWialiinae Bird and Its Implications \i\> Austin L. Rand ^^^^"^^^ Chief Curator, Department op Zoology Myzornis is a monotypic genus for a small, little known, passerine bird of higher altitudes in the Himalayas. The genus is traditionally placed in the Timaliidae and has been associated with Chloropsis and Aegithina by Stuart Baker (1922, p. 345), perhaps because of its pre-dominately green coloration, and with Leiothrix and Cutia by Dela-cour (1946, p. 29), presumably because of the red, black and white pattern in the wing. In the latest treatment of the family (as a sub-family) by Deignan (1964, X, p. 428), Myzornis is placed in a group, "Genera sedis incertae," along with a small miscellany of other non-conformists, at the end of the Timaliinae. In the rather slender, but only slightly elongated bill, Myzornis is only somewhat different from certain other Timaliinae genera such as Yuhina. In addition to the above, the most outstanding features of My-zornis seem to be the black and green, scale-like pattern of the head and the nectar-adapted tongue. Though the brush-tipped character of the tongue was mentioned as early as 1890 (Murray, p. 173), there seems to be no detailed description of the tongue, and it seemed worthy of examination for possible clues to relationships. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Robert L. Fleming, Superintendent of the United Christian Medical Mission to Nepal and an Associate of the Field Museum of Natural History, the Museum has a series of these birds with their dried tongues, and Dr. Fleming's notes on the species, habits. The tongue of Myzornis proves to be not only brush-tipped, but curled-tubular, frayed and split (fig. 2) . The tongue is horny and as long as the bill. In the dried tongue the basal portion is flat and an-teriorly the edges soon curl in to form a tube. In the middle third Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-29539 No. 1017 53 iiwi"-^ FEB < bB3
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