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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. The Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) — that towering icon of modern anthropogenic extinctions — was a pigeon.

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

10,000 Birds

The new 48-genome analysis included only ostrich and tinamou DNA, so it doesn’t shed further light on paleognath interrelationships, but it does reinforce their distinctiveness from all other living birds. So do parrots, some songbirds, humans, and a few other mammals. Open Jarvis et al.’s Ratites, Tinamous, and Fowl.

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