Avebrevicauda

Avebrevicaudans Temporal range: Early Cretaceous–Present, 131–0 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Fossil specimen of Sapeornis chaoyangensis, Hong Kong Science Museum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
Clade:	Euavialae
Clade:	Avebrevicauda Paul, 2002
Subgroups
†Omnivoropterygidae Pygostylia

Avebrevicauda (meaning "birds with short tails") is a group which includes all avialan species with ten or fewer free vertebrae in the tail. The group was named in 2002 by Gregory S. Paul to distinguish short-tailed avialans from their ancestors, such as Archaeopteryx, which had long, reptilian tails.^[1]

Cladogram following the results of a phylogenetic study by Lefèvre et al., 2014:^[2]

Euavialae	†Jixiangornis Avebrevicauda †Omnivoropterygiformes Czerkas & Ji 2002 Pygostylia †Confuciusornithiformes Hou et al. 1995 Ornithothoraces Chiappe & Calvo 1994

References

1. Paul, G.S. (2002). Dinosaurs of the Air. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 460 pp.
2. Lefèvre, U.; Hu, D.; Escuillié, F. O.; Dyke, G.; Godefroit, P. (2014). "A new long-tailed basal bird from the Lower Cretaceous of north-eastern China". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 113 (3): 790–804. doi:10.1111/bij.12343.