Early birds: sweeping new study reveals when birds of a feather appeared altogether
- Exhaustive global analysis finds avian ancestors first appeared within 5 million years of dinosaur extinction
- Clearest picture so far of avian family tree shows how first populations responded to events 66 million years ago, researchers say
Using a large-scale genome analysis, an international group of scientists has found that most present-day groups of birds – the only dinosaur lineage that lives today – emerged within 5 million years of the mass extinction.
With all non-avian dinosaurs eliminated, the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) event provided birds with an opportunity to rapidly diversify and flourish across a wide range of ecological niches, the study found.
The team of 52 researchers from 49 institutions worldwide published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on Monday.
Previous studies have established that the family of modern birds has three major branches. The first branch of ratites and tinamous includes flightless birds such as emus, kiwis and ostriches.
The second one is landfowl and waterfowl, such as chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. All other living birds – 95 per cent of bird species – belong to the third branch known as Neoaves.
Senior author Zhang Guojie, chair professor at the Centre for Evolutionary & Organismal Biology at Zhejiang University, said the latest study has created a new bird family tree, revealing the secrets of bird evolution.
