Black bittern

Abstract: The phylogenetic relationships among 13 species of Ardeidae were asse ssed by mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene sequences The alignment of the 12S rRNA g ene totaled 993 nucleotide positions without gaps, including 363 variable sites, 288 polymorphic sites and 187 parsimony informative sites We reconstructed ph y logenetic trees using MEGA and PAUP software, using the neighbor joining and ma x imum parsimony method respectively The 13 species of herons were grouped into t wo clades The first clade contains 9 species, ie grey heron, purple hero n, Ch inese pond heron, cattle egret, great egret, little egret, intermediate egret, b lack crowned night heron and yellow crowned night heron The second clade co ntai ns 4 species, ie Eurasian bittern, Chinese little bittern, cinnamon bitte rn an d black bittern This supports the classification of the Ardeidae into two subfa milies, Ardeinae and Botaurinae, but does not support their classification into Ardeinae, Nycticracinae, Botaurinae and Tigrisomatinae The little egret branche d off prior to the divergence of great egret and intermediate egret The great e gret and intermediate egret are closer genetically to the grey heron, purple her on and cattle egret than to the little egret The results support Siblys (19 90) classification of the large egret and intermeidate egret in separate gener a Casmerodius and Mesophoyx respectively The black bittern has a closer relatio nship to the cinnamon bittern and Chinese little bittern, these three species fo rming a monophyletic group This supports the placement of the black bittern in the genus Ixobrychus