The family
Pachycephalidae, collectively the
whistlers, includes the whistlers, shrikethrushes,
shriketits,
pitohuis and crested bellbird, and is part of the ancient
Australo-Papuan radiation of
songbirds. Its members range from small to medium in size, and occupy most of
Australasia.
Australia and
New Guinea are the centre of their diversity, and in the case of the whistlers, the South
Pacific islands as far as
Tonga and
Samoa and parts of Asia as far as
India. The exact delimitation of boundaries of the family are uncertain.
