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<p>The <strong>paradoxornis </strong>are a group genus of peculiar birds native to East and Southeast Asia, though feral populations are known from elsewhere. <br /><br />They are generally small, long-tailed birds which inhabit reedbeds and similar habitat. <br /><br />They feed mainly on seeds, e.g. of grasses, to which their bill, as the name implies, is well-adapted. Living in tropical to southern temperate climates, they are usually non-migratory.</p>
<p>The Bearded Reedling or "Bearded Tit", an Eurasian species long placed here, is more insectivorous by comparison, especially in summer. It also strikingly differs in morphology, and was time and again placed in a monotypic family Panuridae. DNA sequence data supports this.</p>
<p><br />
As names like "Bearded Tit" imply, their general habitus and acrobatic habits resemble birds like the Long-tailed tits. Together with these and others they were at some time placed in the titmouse family Paridae. Later studies found no justification to presume a close relationship between all these birds, and consequently the parrotbills and Bearded Reedling were removed from the tits and chickadees and placed into a distinct family, <strong>Paradoxornithidae</strong>. As names like <em>Paradoxornis paradoxus</em> - "puzzling, paradox bird" - suggest, their true relationships were very unclear, although by the latter 20th century they were generally seen as close to Timaliidae ("Old World babblers") and Sylviidae ("Old World warblers").</p>
