Bombycilloidea is a superfamily of passerine birds that contains ten living species.

The common ancestor for both clades lived in Eurasia; at some point, the ancestral Bombycilloidea arrived in North America where they rapidly radiated into multiple families.

[2] Two families, the waxwings (Bombycillidae) and silky-flycatchers (Ptiliogonatidae) contain several species and are widespread throughout the Holarctic and North America respectively, but the others are monotypic (the hypocolius in Hypocoliidae), are restricted to a few islands (the extinct Hawaiian honeyeaters in Mohoidae), or both (the palmchat in Dulidae and the hylocitrea in Hylocitreidae).

[2] The cladogram of the bombycilloids shown below is based on the analysis of Carl Oliveros and colleagues published in 2019.

[2] Dulidae – palmchat Bombycillidae – waxwings Ptiliogonatidae – silky-flycatchers Hylocitreidae – hylocitrea Hypocoliidae – hypocolius †Mohoidae – Hawaiian honeyeaters