Re: Metaves and Coronaves

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> The clade which includes all but the hoatzin does have a bootstrap of a bit 
> over 50. (Which is why I wondered whether the proposed morphological 
> synapomorphies of hoatzin + seriemas could be neoavian synapomorphies.)

I think you mean "neoavian plesiomorphies" here.  I get your drift though.  
The idea that seriemas and hoatzins are closely related (and to 
phorusrhacoids too) is not new, and has been proposed by Mourer-Chauvire and 
Olson.  For example, the carpometacarpus of these birds shows similarities.  
Olson (1985) put forward a New World clade that includes all of these birds, 
plus a group of raptors called the caracaras (Polyborinae - almost always 
put in the Falconidae).