oscine

1. not comparableOf or pertaining to songbirds (suborder Passeri).

   Synonyms: oscinine

plural oscines

1. Any bird of the suborder Passeri (the songbirds), which have better vocal control than other birds.

   Specifically, the suboscine/oscine split is based on the presence versus absence of specialized intrinsic syringeal musculature in oscines (in addition to a critical contribution of learning to vocal development).

   2011, F. Keith Barker, “Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds”, in Gareth Dyke, Gary Kaiser, editors, Phylogeny and Diversification in Modern Passerines, page 244

   2 more examples

   Because the oscines are the most speciose group of living birds, the use of learned vocalizations for mate competition and attraction has been hypothesized to have facilitated speciation (Marler and Tamura 1962; Slabbekoorn and Smith 2002; see Ricklefs [2003] for an alternative view).

   2005, Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, Hormones and Animal Social Behavior, page 273

   Oscine songbirds are capable of vocal learning. This has led to a detailed study of the sophisticated set of neural nuclei responsible for the central control of the song. Oscines also show a high degree of complexity at the level of the vocal organ. For this reason, we dedicate a section to the description of the oscine syrinx.

   2006, Gabriel B. Mindlin, Rodrigo Laje, The Physics of Birdsong, page 41