Several unrelated groups of songbird

Songbird

A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...

s are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

's meow

Meow

Meow is an imitative word for a sound made in cat communication. It may also refer to:- Music :* Miou Miou, a Czech pop band* Miaow , an English band* Miaow , a 1994 album by The Beautiful South...

ing. The genus name Ailuroedus likewise is from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 for "cat-singer" or "cat-voiced".

Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

n catbirds are the genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 Ailuroedus

Ailuroedus

Ailuroedus is a genus of birds in the Ptilonorhynchidae family .-Species:* White-eared Catbird * Green Catbird * Spotted Catbird...

and the monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 Scenopooetes. They belong to the bowerbird

Bowerbird

Bowerbirds make up the bird family Ptilonorhynchidae. The family has 20 species in eight genera. These are medium-sized passerines, ranging from the Golden Bowerbird to the Great Bowerbird...

 family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 (Ptilonorhynchidae) of the basal songbirds:

• White-eared Catbird
  White-eared Catbird
  The White-eared Catbird is a species of bird in the Ptilonorhynchidae family.It is found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea....
  
  , Ailuroedus buccoides
• Spotted Catbird
  Spotted Catbird
  The Spotted Catbird, Ailuroedus melanotis, also known as Black-eared Catbird, is a species of bowerbird which can be found in north Queensland, Australia, and the island of New Guinea. It is approximately 26–30 cm in length, and its coloring is emerald green, with faint black markings on the...
  
  , Ailuroedus melanotis
• Green Catbird
  Green Catbird
  The Green Catbird, Ailuroedus crassirostris is a species of bowerbird found on subtropical forests along the east coast of Australia, from southeastern Queensland to southern New South Wales. Its colouring is emerald green, with faint black markings on the face and white streaks on the neck.Green...
  
  , Ailuroedus crassirostris
• Tooth-billed Catbird
  Tooth-billed Catbird
  The Tooth-billed Catbird, Scenopoeetes dentirostris also known as Stagemaker Bowerbird is a medium-sized, approximately 27 cm long, stocky olive-brown bowerbird with brown-streaked buffish-white below, a grey feet, brown iris and unique tooth-like bill. Both sexes are similar, however the...
  
  , Scenopooetes dentirostris

New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 catbirds are two monotypic genera from the mimid

Mimid

The mimids are the New World family of passerine birds, Mimidae, that includes thrashers, mockingbirds, tremblers, and the New World catbirds...

 family (Mimidae) of the passerida

Passerida

Passerida is under the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, one of two "parvorders" contained within the suborder Passeri...

n superfamily Muscicapoidea. Among the Mimidae, they represent independent basal lineages probably closer to the Caribbean thrasher and trembler assemblage than to the mockingbird

Mockingbird

Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the Mimidae family. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians, often loudly and in rapid succession. There are about 17 species in three genera...

s and Toxostoma

Toxostoma

Toxostoma is a genus of bird in the Mimidae family. All members of this genus are called thrashers but there are other birds in the Mimidae family also bearing this title...

thrashers:

• Gray Catbird
  Gray Catbird
  The Gray Catbird , also spelled Grey Catbird, is a medium-sized northern American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the "catbird" genus Dumetella...
  
  , Dumetella carolinensis
• Black Catbird
  Black Catbird
  The Black Catbird is a songbird species in the monotypic genus Melanoptila of the family Mimidae. At 24 grams and 20 cm, it is the smallest mimid.It is found in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico...
  
  , Melanoptila glabrirostris

The Abyssinian Catbird

Abyssinian Catbird

The Abyssinian Catbird is a species of bird in the Timaliidae family. It is monotypic within the genus Parophasma.It is endemic to Ethiopia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests.-References:...

(Parophasma galinieri) represents a monotypic genus from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. It is tentatively placed in the Old World babbler

Old World babbler

The Old World babblers or timaliids are a large family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the greatest variety in Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent...

 family (Timaliidae) of the passeridan superfamily Sylvioidea

Sylvioidea

Sylvioidea is a superfamily of passerine birds. It is one of at least three major clades within the Passerida along with the Muscicapoidea and Passeroidea. It contains about 1300 species including the Old World warblers, Old World babblers, swallows, larks, bulbuls and perhaps the tits...

, but possibly closer to the typical warbler

Typical warbler

The typical warblers are small birds belonging to the genus Sylvia in the "Old World warbler" family Sylviidae. There are 28 species currently included in the genus, including five species formerly treated in the genus Parisoma, a treatment which left Sylvia paraphyletic...

s of the Sylviidae.