Re: avian nomenclature

[evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>]

Addendum: for passerine birds, http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List13.html is *very* nice 
indeed. 

And if you disassemble the "Metaves" and take some "Pelecanae" taxa with a 
grain of salt (sure you can split Ciconiiformes+Pelecaniformes in five, but I 
would at present rather split Phalacrocoraciformes and tropicbirds out and 
merge the rest), this is generally very nice.

(As regards "Metaves" - tropicbirds quite robustly go between Charadriae and 
"Pelecanae" - *perhaps* basal on the "seabird" branch of the latter though -, 
while the "odd Gruiformes" probably go between Pelecanae and Passerae. Doves, 
hoatzin, turacos, cuckoos and sandgrouse are somewhere - presumably rather near 
the base, if there is any - of Passerae. Though the monophyly of the latter 
is... equivocal... which may have something to do with their radiation perhaps 
being the direct consequence of the last mass extinction.)

If I had to pick a *single* source on Neornithes taxonomy, this is (presently) 
it. I mean - http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List32.html is this beautiful or what? And 
to think that 10 years ago, all that was just a vast morass of guestimates and 
half-truths!


Regards,

Eike

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