Talk:Paleognathae
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[edit] Most living paleognath species are flightless?!
"most living paleognath species (all ratites) are flightless". Say what? If there are 47 species of "flying Tinamiformes" and 13 species of flightless Struthioniformes (ratites), that makes only 13 of 60 that are flightless. What am I missing? Nurg 10:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- Changed "most" to "many", though this section still needs some elaboration and a cite.Dinoguy2 13:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
- 22% is not many. I've corrected it. Nurg 06:12, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cladogram
I have outcommented the cladograms. A consensus phylogeny for paleognaths simply does not exist, period. We don't know whether the cassowary-emu clade should be treated as family (i.e. as sister to ostriches) or as order (i.e. as sister to ostriches and tinamous) for example. Being unsourced makes it even worse.
The "Systematics and taxonomy" (it's actually only systematics except the "Early Taxonomy" section) part needs to be entirely reworked. What about these moa species? 1/3 of them don't even exist; "Dinornis gazelle" - I guess that should be gazella and it's not a valid species. 4 species of Aepyornis - really? And what good is a link "M. titan"? "Paraphysornis is a phorusrhacid." yeah that's nioce to know, but the article gives no reason why it would have been placed with the ratites (it may well have, but in that case Gastornis is missing). Palaeocursonis a lithornithid? It does not even seem to be neornithine[1]! And Gansus too, how did that get here? It's far more likely that that's an ancestral hesperornithean than a paleognath!
IMHO it is best to accept either many orders (each major ratite clade gets their own) or 2-3 (tinamous and ratites(+)lithornithids) and subdivide the ratites using superfamilies. For there is some structure - when ostrich ancestors split from rhea ancestors, these birds were still flying as far as anyone can tell.
And Wikispecies must not be allowed an opinion on the issue. It uses a phenetic classification for birds in general. Horrible! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
