Novaeratitae

Novaeratitae
Portrait of a Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Clade: Notopalaeognathae
Clade: Novaeratitae
Yuri et. al, 2013
Orders

Novaeratitae is a clade that was originally defined to contain the recent common ancestors of the orders Casuariiformes (emus and cassowaries) and Apterygiformes (kiwis).[1][2] Recently it has been determined that the elephant birds of the extinct order Aepyornithiformes were the closest relatives of the kiwis, and therefore are part of this group.[3] The implication is that ratites had lost flight independently in each group, as the elephant birds are the only novaeratites found outside Oceania.[3]

References

  1. Hackett, S.J. et al. (2008) A Phylogenomic Study of Birds Reveals Their Evolutionary History. Science, 320, 1763.
  2. Yuri, T. (2013) Parsimony and model-based analyses of indels in avian nuclear genes reveal congruent and incongruent phylogenetic signals. Biology, 2:419–44.
  3. 1 2 Mitchell, K. J.; Llamas, B.; Soubrier, J.; Rawlence, N. J.; Worthy, T. H.; Wood, J.; Lee, M. S. Y.; Cooper, A. (2014-05-23). "Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution". Science. 344 (6186): 898–900. doi:10.1126/science.1251981. PMID 24855267.


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