Euornithes (from the Ancient Greek word ευόρνιθες meaning "true birds") is a Clade which includes the most recent common ancestor of all closer to modern than to the enantiornithines. This group was defined in the PhyloCode by Juan Benito and colleagues in 2022 as "the largest clade containing Vultur gryphus, but not Enantiornis leali and Cathayornis yandica".
Description
Clarke
et al. (2006) found that the most primitive known euornithians (the
Yanornithiformes) had a mosaic of advanced and primitive features. These species retained primitive features like
gastralia and a
pubic symphysis. They also showed the first fully modern
, and the type specimen of
Yixianornis (IVPP 13631) preserves eight elongated
rectrices (tail feathers) in a modern arrangement. No earlier
are known which preserve a fan of tail feathers of this sort; instead, they showed only paired plumes or a tuft of short feathers.
Classification
The name Euornithes has been used for a wide variety of avialan groups since it was first named by Leonhard Stejneger in 1884.
It was first defined as a
clade in 1998 by
Paul Sereno, who made it the group of all animals closer to birds than to
Enantiornithes (represented by
Sinornis). This definition currently includes similar content as another widely used name,
Ornithuromorpha, named and defined by
Luis Chiappe in 1999 as the common ancestor of
Patagopteryx,
Vorona, and
Ornithurae, plus all of its descendants. Because one definition is node-based and the other branch-based, Ornithuromorpha is a slightly less inclusive group.
Relationships
The cladogram below follows the results of a phylogenetic analysis by Lee
et al., 2014:
The following cladogram below follows the results of a phylogenetic analysis by Pei et al., 2020:
Other genera
The following is a list of primitive euornithian genera and those that cannot be confidently referred to any subgroups, following Holtz (2011) unless otherwise noted.
[Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2012) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2011 Appendix.]
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† Alamitornis
-
† Changmaornis
-
† Changzuiornis
[Huang, J., Wang, X., Hu, Y., Liu, J., Peteya, J. A., & Clarke, J. A. (2016). A new ornithurine from the Early Cretaceous of China sheds light on the evolution of early ecological and cranial diversity in birds. PeerJ, 4: e1765. ]
-
† Dingavis
[
]
-
† Gargantuavis
-
† Horezmavis
-
† Iteravis
[
]
-
† Juehuaornis
[
]
-
† Platanavis
-
† Wyleyia?
-
† Yumenornis
-
Xinghaiornis
[
]
-
† Zhyraornis
Note that Holtz also included the genera Eurolimnornis and Piksi as euornitheans, though they have since been re-identified as .
External links
