NO. 4 AVIAN GENUS CLAMATOR — FRIEDMANN 9 



Asia. The need for sufficient time makes a Pliocene spread more 

 probable than a post-Pliocene infiltration, presuming, of course, a 

 Pliocene or pre-Pliocene origin of the group stock in southeastern 

 Africa. 



The fossil record of the Cuculidae gives no pertinent data. The 

 family is known from the Oligocene of France ( Dynamo pferus 

 velox), from the middle Miocene (Necrornis, only questionably a 

 cuckoo), and from numerous Pleistocene remains too recent to be 

 of any use in reconstructing the history of the family (Coua, Cticulus, 

 Geococcyx, Coccysus, Crotophaga, Tapera, and Pyrrhococcyx) , but 

 even there nothing close to Clamator. 



It is not feasible to say, or even to guess, from what stock Clamator 

 may have evolved, as there are no living cuckoos that seem likely 

 ancestral forms. Yet I cannot put down the vague thought that some- 

 thing like the Phaenicophaeinae in Asia, or like Ceuthmochares in 

 Africa today, may be closer to — less subsequently specialized and 

 hence less deviated from the original — primordial stock of the family, 

 and to this extent may be looked upon as existing representations of 

 the ancestral group that gave rise to Clamator. 



Recent studies by Berger (1960, p. 82), especially his myological 

 dissections, coupled with his familiarity with what had been written 

 of the breeding habits, parasitic or otherwise, of the genera of 

 cuckoos, led him to write as follows "... It would appear that one 

 must discount either myological data or breeding behavior in deciding 

 the relationships among the cuckoos . . . Thus, if we are to place 

 any value on morphological characters, we must assume either that 

 parasitism has developed independently as many as four times in 

 this one family (which seems highly unlikely) or that the parasitic 

 habit (or tendency for it) developed in the primitive cuckoos (all 

 ABXYAm) . . ." Similarly, Darlington (1957, p. 273) concluded 

 from a study of the geographic distribution of the cuckoos as a 

 whole, that the family is probably ancient and had a ". . . complex, 

 undecipherable history." 



Although there is fairly good agreement among students that 

 Clamator is a primitive genus, there is no such concurrence as to 

 what other living genera it is closest in its phylogenetic relations. The 

 Stresemanns (1961, p. 328) concluded that Clamator was only 

 distantly related to the other Cuculinae. Many years ago, Sharpe 

 (1872, p. 68) suggested it was somewhat similar to Eudynamis, 

 but this is not substantiated by Berger's anatomical findings (1960). 

 He noted that there were two basic types of cuculine muscle formulae, 



