The renaissance of avian paleontology and its bearing on the higher-level phylogeny of birds

Abstract

Recent phylogenetic analyses provide strong evidence for some previously undetected clades of morphologically very divergent avian groups. Also, within the past decades, palaeornithology has experienced a renaissance and the Paleogene fossil record of birds is approaching that of mammals in the number of recorded higher-level taxa. However, there is still little mutual exchange between students of these different data, as molecular systematists are often unfamiliar with the fossil record of birds, whereas palaeornithologists only recently started to interpret their fossils in the light of modern phylogenetic analyses. Here, this deficiency is remedied in a brief overview of some fossil “missing links” between extant higher avian groups, which combine derived characters of a certain taxon and plesiomorphic characters of its sister group.