Phylogenetic relationships between the families based on a large study by
Richard Prum and colleagues published in 2015.[5]
Systematics
Recent genetic data show that
ground hornbills and Bycanistes form a clade outside the rest of the hornbill lineage.[6] They are thought to represent an early African lineage, while the rest of Bucerotiformes evolved in Asia. The hoopoe subspecies
Saint Helena hoopoe and the
Madagascar subspecies are sometimes elevated to a full species. The two wood hoopoe genera, Phoeniculus and Rhinopomastus, appear to have diverged about 10 million years ago, so some systematists treat them as separate
subfamilies or even separate
families.[7]
^Woodruff, D. S. & Srikwan, S. 2011. Molecular genetics and the conservation of hornbills in fragmented landscapes. In Poonswad, P. (ed) The Asian Hornbills: Ecology and Conservation. National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Bangkok, pp. 257-264.
^Fry, C. Hilary (2003). "Wood-hoopoes". In Perrins, Christopher. The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Firefly Books. p. 383.
ISBN1-55297-777-3.
^Mayr, Gerald (2009). "Paleogene Fossil Birds". In Springer Science & Business Media, 21 April 2009, p. 194.
ISBN978-3-540-89627-2
Further reading
Gonzalez, J.-C.T.; Sheldon, B.C.; Collar, N.J.; Tobias, J.A. (2013). "A comprehensive molecular phylogeny for the hornbills (Aves: Bucerotidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 67 (2): 468–483.
doi:
10.1016/j.ympev.2013.02.012.
PMID23438388.