All the birds, one tree!

T

he world of birds is captivating, vibrant, kaleidoscopic, and incredibly diverse! Hearing the bird lectures in my 2^nd year bachelors Australian Wildlife Biology unit re-kindled by fascination for bird life. I was overwhelmed with the sheer hugeness of bird diversity that I decided to try and taxonomically group the birds in a diagram and essentially, bring all the birds into one tree!...

Bird diversity

All birds, one family tree!

All birds belong to the class Aves which is split into 3 superorders: Paleognathae, Galloanserae, and Neoaves.

·       Paleognathe – primitive, reptilian-like, smaller brain

·       Galloanserae – fowls

·       Neoaves – the rest of the birds!

SUPERORDER: Paleognathae

PALEOGNATHAE
Order (common names)	Info
Ostrich	native from Africa
Rhea	native from South America
Tinamous	only paleognathae member that can fly
Lithornithiformes	extinct
Moa	extinct
Kiwi	whilst the other birds have smaller relative brain sizes, the kiwi has higher cognitive function
Elephant bird	extinct
Cassowary and emu (Order: Casuariiformes)	Family: Dromaiidae (emu)	can go weeks without food
	Family: Casuariidae (cassowary)	casque – function possibly for heat dissipation, helmet for running through rainforest, display, or sound amplification

SUPERORDER: Galloanserae

GALLOANSERAE
Order	Family		Info
Anseriformes	Anhimidae		screamers e.g. horned screamer
	Anatidae		geese, swan, ducks e.g. pacific black duck
	Anseranatidae		magpie goose (1 spp.)
Galliformes	Megapodiidae		mound-builders e.g. Australian brush-turkey
	Cracidae		chachalacas, guans, curassows
	Superfamily: Phasianoidea	F: Odontophoridae	new-world quails
		F: Numididae	guinea-fowls
		F: Phasianidae	pheasants, chickens, turkeys e.g. Kind quail

SUPERORDER: Neoaves

NEOAVES
Clade	Members		Info
Gruiformes	cranes, rails		crane-like
Columbaves	pigeons, cuckoos, turacos, bustards, mesites, sandgrouses
Aequorlitornithes	flamingo, grebes, waders, loons, albatross, petrel, penguin, stork, cormorant, pelican, herons, ibis + more!		water birds
Inopinaves	O: Passeriformes	perching birds e.g. honeyeaters, magpie, finches	land birds
	O: Psittaciformes	parrots
	O: Falconiformes	falcons, hawks
	O: Accipitriformes	eagles, kites, goshawks
	O: Strigiformes	owls
	O: Coraciiformes	kingfishers
	+ more!
Strisores	nightjars, owlet-nightjars, hummingbirds, frogmouths, treeswifts + more!

Hope that helps! I find it useful to have classification tables or diagrams as a handy reference to whip out any time! Let me emphasise that this is simply a handy study tool and by no means is guaranteed to be entirely accurate, although I’ve tried my best using information gathered from class notes, lecture resources, and supplementary info from sources online.

Related article: What's in a bird?

See you in my next article Xx

Sources:

Cole, L 2019, BIOL2032 Australian Wildlife Biology, lecture: Birds: Evolution & Diversity, lecture PowerPoint slides, Taronga Conservation Society Australia, The University of Sydney

Wikipedia 2019, Neoaves, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, viewed 30 December 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoaves