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Here’s the new bird family tree. It’s amazing.

10,000 Birds

The magnificent history and diversity of birds on Earth came into sharper focus this month with the publication of 28 new scientific papers in Science and other journals. One of the central papers, Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds (Jarvis et al. American Flamingo photo by Dick Culbert).

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The five most unique birds in the world

10,000 Birds

What are the world’s most distinctive birds? That question could be answered in several ways, but a new paper released this month — Global Distribution and Conservation of Evolutionary Distinctness in Birds (Jetz et al. But you won’t find Ostrich or another ratite in first place on Jetz et al.’s