Natural History Wanderings

There are many articles just published about major changes in the bird relationships, evolution, and the new bird family tree.

The largest-ever study of avian genomes greatly expands our knowledge of bird evolution. 28 Studies by over 200 scientists were published  this week in 28 papers in Science, Genome Biology, GigaScience and other publications.

Some of the changes mentioned in Birds Of A Feather Aren’t Necessarily Related : Shots – Health News : NPR are

Parrots are actually close relatives of falcons. Pigeons are more closely related to flamingos than they are to crows. And land fowl, like chickens, are related to ducks.

See the new bird family tree at Flock of geneticists redraws bird family tree : Nature News & Comment.

Read some of the more of the notable findings at An Unprecedented Flock of Genomes Redraws the Bird Tree of Life – Bloomberg.