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Re: fossil birds and Recent p...
According to Charles Sibley in the presidential address from the XX
Ornithological Congress, "There are few fossils of Mesozoic birds and most
may not have left living descendants...The branches leading to the Ostrich,
rheas, and the Emu-Cassowary-kiwi cluster occurred close together, probably
in the late Cretaceous...the divergence [between waterfowl and gallinaceous
birds] was probably in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary...the divergence
[between swifts and hummingbirds] was ancient, possibly in the late
Cretaceous."