See text The whistling thrushes comprise a genus Myophonus of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae.

The brighter blue patches found on the shoulders and sometimes the head, of whistling thrushes, uniquely for a passerine, reflect strongly in the ultraviolet.

This is a junior synonym of Turdus flavirostris Horsfield, a subspecies of the blue whistling thrush which is therefore the type species.

However, the assembled volumes included pages inserted before Plate 170 with the genus name spelled as Myiophoneus.

[7] As the English name suggests, the genus was at one time placed in the thrush family Turdidae but in 2010 two separate molecular phylogenetic studies found that members of the genus were more closely related to species in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae.