Re: Livezey and Zusi's paper plagued with convergence?

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Now that I have the data matrix, we can see where these large flightless 
> birds end up according to their data.  All three form a clade sister to 
> Aptornis (another large extinct ground bird) in Gruiformes.  Seems 
> somewhat suspicious to me.  Dromornithids are supposed to be related to 
> anseriforms, Sylviornis to galliforms, and Gastornis to anseriforms or 
> maybe gruiforms.  Are even huge, detailed morphological analyses just 
> doomed to convergence?

Or maybe they just contain a few hundred correlated characters. Figuring 
that out would make a nice Ph.D. thesis or three.