Pachycareinae

Subfamily Pachycareinae, subfamilia nova ―goldenfaces

Type genus: Pachycare Gould, 1876

Diagnosis. Small, short-tailed, slender-bodied and brightly-colored songbirds with rich grey dorsum and goldenyellow face and ventrum; sexes similar except for grey cheek patch in females; head rather narrow, the bill Gerygone -like, uncompressed, tomia smooth except for terminal maxillary notch, and narial depression roundelliptic, with semi-operculate, holorhinal and internally fully pervious nostrils opening externally in distal elliptic apertures under operculum, rictal bristles fine and sparse; skull with fully perforate interorbital septum, narrowlywinged ectethmoids slightly flattened with club-like tips against the jugal bar, broadly linguate maxillo-palatines rather expanded towards the tips, linguate vomer with vestigial horns, rather narrow palatine shelf with acute transpalatine processes, and upright-oblong, well-defined temporal fossae with terete, ventrally-projecting postorbital processes that are longer than the short, acute anteriorly-projecting zygomatic processes; sternum with lateral trabeculae short, broadly-flattened and expanded moderately at tips, c. ⅓ x length of sternum, no other data; wings short and rounded, primaries 10 with p10 short, p7 and p6 longest, and p8=p5; humeral fossae pseudodouble, the outer fossa an untrabeculated cup, the incisura capitis deep, extending into a shallow inner tricipital fossa, ventral tubercle protuberant, and pectoral crest short, hardly decurrent below fossae; tail short and roundtipped with dull, narrow black subterminal bar through outer rectrices, tail/wing ratio (0.58–)0.60–0.63(–0.65), the rectrices 12, straight-sided without terminal flaring, shallowly acute at tips; feet short but stout, with booted tarsi, basal toe pads slightly enlarged. Nest a bulky dome with hooded side-entrance, of twigs (base) and grass fibers (body), lined with finer grass fiber and fern rootlets, and placed on the ground in the shelter of rocks or small tree buttresses; eggs 2–3 per clutch, broadly ovoid, matt- to satin-white with a sparse sprinkling of fine red-brown speckles concentrated in a zone or cap at the larger end. Arboreal, forest-living insectivores, gleaning actively among foliage and branchlets; posture horizontal (Coates 1990: 206); apparently monogamous.

Range and composition. Lower montane rainforests of New Guinea; one genus: Pachycare Gould, 1876, of one species: P. flavogriseum (A.B. Meyer, 1874).