Novaeratitae

Novaeratitae
Portrait of a Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Clade:	Notopalaeognathae
Clade:	Novaeratitae Yuri et. al, 2013
Orders
Casuariiformes †Aepyornithiformes Apterygiformes

Novaeratitae is a clade that was originally defined to contain the recent common ancestors of the orders Casuariiformes (emus and cassowaries) and Apterygiformes (kiwis).^[1][2] Recently it has been determined that the elephant birds of the extinct order Aepyornithiformes were the closest relatives of the kiwis, and therefore are part of this group.<ref name = Mitchell2014">Mitchell, K. J.; Llamas, B.; Soubrier, J.; Rawlence, N. J.; Worthy, T. H.; Wood, J.; Lee, M. S. Y.; Cooper, A. (2014-05-23). "Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution". Science 344 (6186): 898–900. doi:10.1126/science.1251981. PMID 24855267.</ref> The implication is that ratites had lost flight independently in each group, as the elephant birds are the only novaeratites found outside Oceania.<ref name = Mitchell2014">Mitchell, K. J.; Llamas, B.; Soubrier, J.; Rawlence, N. J.; Worthy, T. H.; Wood, J.; Lee, M. S. Y.; Cooper, A. (2014-05-23). "Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution". Science 344 (6186): 898–900. doi:10.1126/science.1251981. PMID 24855267.</ref>

References

1. Hackett, S.J. et al. (2008) A Phylogenomic Study of Birds Reveals Their Evolutionary History. Science, 320, 1763.
2. Yuri, T. (2013) Parsimony and model-based analyses of indels in avian nuclear genes reveal congruent and incongruent phylogenetic signals. Biology, 2:419–44.