See text The tits, chickadees, and titmice constitute the Paridae, a large family of small passerine birds which occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and Africa.

The name titmouse is recorded from the 14th century, composed of the Old English name for the bird, mase (Proto-Germanic *maison, Dutch mees, German Meise), and tit, denoting something small.

[3] Many species live around human habitation and come readily to bird feeders for nuts or seed, and learn to take other foods.

With the exception of the three monotypic genera Sylviparus, Melanochlora, and Pseudopodoces, the tits are extremely similar in appearance, and have been described as "one of the most conservative avian families in terms of general morphology".

[6] The most aberrant bill of the family is possessed by Hume's ground tit of Tibet and the Himalayas, which is long and decurved.

The coal tit, also in this genus, is a much more widespread species, ranging from the British Isles and North Africa to Japan.

The two crested tits of the genus Lophophanes have a disjunct distribution, with one species occurring in Europe and the other in central Asia.

Cyanistes has a European and Asian distribution (also into northern Africa), and the three remaining genera, Pseudopodoces, Sylviparus, and Melanochlora, are all restricted to Asia.

They are amongst the most vocal of all birds, calling continuously in most situations, so much so that they are only ever silent for specific reasons such as avoiding predators or when intruding on a rival's territory.

[3] Most tits are multibrooded, a necessary strategy to cope with either the harsh winters in which they reside in the Holarctic or the extremely erratic conditions of tropical Africa,[15] where typically a single pair cannot find enough food to rear even one nestling and in drought years breeding is likely to be futile.

Many African tit species, along with Pseudopodoces, are cooperative breeders,[16] and even pair-breeding parids are often highly social and maintain stable flocks throughout the nonbreeding season.

Recently, the large Parus group has been gradually split into several genera (as indicated below), initially by North American ornithological authorities and later elsewhere.

Alternatively, all tits—save the two monotypic genera discussed in the preceding section and possibly Cyanistes, but including Hume's ground tit—could be lumped in Parus.

Still, the interrelationship of these, as well as the relationships of many species within the clades, are not well-resolved at all; analysis of morphology and biogeography probably gives a more robust picture than the available molecular data.