| Ornithurans | |
|---|---|
| Cast skeleton ofIchthyornis dispar,Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center | |
| Australian brushturkey (Alectura lathami) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Clade: | Avialae |
| Clade: | Ornithuromorpha |
| Clade: | Ornithurae Haeckel, 1866 |
| Subgroups | |
Ornithurae (meaning "bird tails" inGreek) is anatural group that includes modernbirds and their very close relatives such as theichthyornithines and thehesperornithines. This clade is defined in thePhyloCode by Juan Benito and colleagues in 2022 as "the smallest clade containingIchthyornis dispar,Hesperornis regalis, andVultur gryphus".[2]
Ernst Haeckel coined the name in 1866 and included in the group all "true birds" with the "characteristic tail morphology of all extant birds" (translation byJacques Gauthier). This distinguishes the group fromArchaeopteryx, which Haeckel placed in another new group calledSauriurae. Said simply, modern birds have short, fusedpygostyle tails, whileArchaeopteryx retained the long tail characteristic of non-aviantheropoddinosaurs.[3]
Gauthier converted Ornithurae into aclade, giving it a branch-based definition: "extant birds and all other taxa, such asIchthyornis andHesperornithes, that are closer to extant birds than isArchaeopteryx". Later he andde Queiroz redefined it as an apomorphy-based clade more in keeping with Haeckel's original usage, including the firstpan-avian with a "bird tail" homologous with that ofVultur gryphus, and all of its descendants.[4] They defined "bird tail" as a tail that is shorter than the femur, with apygostyle that is a ploughshare-shaped, compressed element, with the bones fused in the adult, composed of less than sixcaudal vertebrae, and shorter than the free part of the tail, which itself is composed of less than eight caudal vertebrae. They included Aves (which they defined as the "crown group" of modern birds),Ichthyornis, Hesperornithes, andApsaravis in Ornithurae.
Neornithes was originally proposed as a replacement for Ornithurae byGadow in 1892 and 1893. Gauthier and de Queiroz, therefore, consider Neornithes a junior synonym of Ornithurae,[4] though many other scientists use Neornithes to refer to the much more restrictive crown group consisting only of modern birds (a group for which Gauthier uses the name Aves). Alternately, some researchers have used Ornithurae to refer to a more restrictive node-based clade, anchored onHesperornis and modern birds.[5]
Thecladogram below is the result of a 2017 analysis by McLachlan and colleagues.[6]
| Ornithurae |
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