Tyranniscus

Tyranniscus is a genus of small passerine birds in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. The genus contains three species.

Tyranniscus
Black-capped tyrannulet (Tyranniscus nigrocapillus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Tyrannidae
Genus:	Tyranniscus Cabanis and Heine, 1860
Type species
Tyrannulus nigricapillus Black-capped tyrannulet Lafresnaye, 1845

Taxonomy

The genus Tyranniscus was introduced in 1860 by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine to accommodate a single species, Tyrannulus nigricapillus, the black-capped tyrannulet, that had first been formally described in 1845 by French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye.^[1][2] The genus name is a diminutive of the Ancient Greek τυραννος/turannos meaning "tyrant".^[3]

The genus contains three species:^[4]

• Black-capped tyrannulet, Tyranniscus nigrocapillus
• Ashy-headed tyrannulet, Tyranniscus cinereiceps
• Tawny-rumped tyrannulet, Tyranniscus uropygialis

These species were formerly placed in the genus Phyllomyias. A large molecular phylogenetic study by Michael Harvey and collaborators published in 2020 found that the genus Phyllomyias was paraphyletic. As part of the reorganization to create monotypic genera, the genus Tyranniscus was resurrected to contain the above three species.^[4][5]