Telluraves (also called land birds or core landbirds) is a recently defined clade of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s defined by their

arboreality Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The habi ...

. Based on most recent genetic studies, the clade unites a variety of bird groups, including the australavians (

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

parrot Parrots (Psittaciformes), also known as psittacines (), are birds with a strong curved beak, upright stance, and clawed feet. They are classified in four families that contain roughly 410 species in 101 genus (biology), genera, found mostly in ...

seriema The seriemas are the sole living members of the small bird family Cariamidae (the entire family is also referred to as "seriemas"), which is also the only surviving lineage of the order Cariamiformes. Once believed to be related to cranes, they ...

s, and

falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Some small species of falcons with long, narrow wings are called hobbies, and some that hover while hunting are called kestrels. Falcons are widely distrib ...

s) as well as the afroavians (including the Accipitrimorphae –

eagle Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

hawk Hawks are birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are very widely distributed and are found on all continents, except Antarctica. The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and others. This ...

buzzard Buzzard is the common name of several species of birds of prey. ''Buteo'' species * Archer's buzzard (''Buteo archeri'') * Augur buzzard (''Buteo augur'') * Broad-winged hawk (''Buteo platypterus'') * Common buzzard (''Buteo buteo'') * Easte ...

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...

s etc. –

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

s and

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family (biology), family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme ...

s, among others). This grouping was defined in the ''

PhyloCode The ''International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature'', known as the ''PhyloCode'' for short, is a formal set of rules governing phylogenetic nomenclature. Its current version is specifically designed to regulate the naming of clades, leaving the ...

'' by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing ''

Accipiter nisus The Eurasian sparrowhawk (''Accipiter nisus''), also known as the northern sparrowhawk or simply the sparrowhawk, is a small bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Adult male Eurasian sparrowhawks have bluish grey upperparts and orange-barred ...

'' and ''

Passer domesticus The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, ...

''". They appear to be the

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of the

Phaethoquornithes Phaethoquornithes is a clade of birds that contains Eurypygimorphae and Aequornithes, which was first recovered by genome analysis in 2014. Members of Eurypygimorphae were originally classified in the obsolete group Metaves, and Aequornithes we ...

. Given that the most basal extant members of both Afroaves (Accipitrimorphae, Strigiformes) and Australaves (Cariamiformes, Falconiformes) are

birds of prey Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as (although not the same as) raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively predation, hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and smaller birds). In addition to speed ...

, it has been suggested that the last common ancestor of all Telluraves may have been an apex predator, and possibly also a bird of prey. Other researchers are skeptical of this assessment, citing the herbivorous cariamiform ''

Strigogyps ''Strigogyps'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric bird from the Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene of France and Germany. It was probably around the size of a large chicken or a guan, weighing not quite . Apparently, as indicated by the ratio of l ...

'' as evidence to the contrary. Afroaves has not always been recovered as a monophyletic clade in subsequent studies. For instance, Prum ''et al.'' (2015) recovered the accipitrimorphs as the sister group to a clade (Eutelluraves) comprising the remaining Afroavian orders and

Australaves Australaves is a clade of birds, defined in 2012, consisting of the Eufalconimorphae (passerines, parrots and falcons) as well as the Cariamiformes (including seriemas and the extinct "terror birds"). They appear to be the sister group of Afroave ...

.,Prum, R.O. ''et al''. (2015
A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing
Nature 526, 569–573. while an analysis by Houde ''et al''. (2019) recovered a clade of accipitrimorphs and owls as sister to the remaining landbirds. Wu et al. (2024) also found recovered and found support the clade of accipitrimorphs and owls (which they have named

Hieraves Hieraves is a clade of telluravian birds named by Wu ''et al''. (2024) that includes the orders Strigiformes (owls) and Accipitriformes (hawks and their relatives). The Cathartidae (New World vultures) are usually included in Accipitriformes, b ...

), but found the clade to be sister to Australaves, while Coraciimorphae is the basal most clade in Telluraves. The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

of the Telluraves shown below is based on the study by Josefin Stiller and collaborators published in 2024. The species numbers are taken from the December 2023 version of the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC). This list includes the Cathartiformes (New World vultures) in the order Accipitriformes.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q20645445 Neognathae