Re: teratorn relationships

[Michael Habib <mhabib5@jhmi.edu>]

I'm not sure about a consensus on teratorn relationships, but it is 
worth mentioning that cathartids themselves are regularly placed with 
storks at this point, so those two phylogenetic hypotheses are somewhat 
congruent.

Pelecaniformes  is probably highly paraphyletic (or even polyphyletic) 
so there's no telling there.

--Mike Habib


On Saturday, January 21, 2006, at 08:56 AM, Brian Lauret wrote:

> Hi all
>
> as we probably all know, teratorns have traditionally been linked to 
> cathartids. In recent years,however this is far from universally 
> accepted.
>
> For example, I seem to remember Feduccia mentioning in 'The Origin and 
> Evolution of Birds' that there were reasons to link teratorns to 
> pelecaniforms or storks. Of course, Feduccia did not mention what 
> reasons those were (as far as I remember.)
>
> So my question is: has any consensus been reached or persuasive theory 
> been made as to what birds teratorns were most closely related to?
>
> P.S. I've seen a height-estimate of 2 meters for Argentavis. Is that 
> realistic?
>
> thanks in advance,
>
> Brian