They're all in Ciconiiformes now?

[marcus]

Hello
I was looking online for information about a bird I saw today for my first time, a Royal Tern Sterna maxima. The first website I went to showed the order it belongs to, the Ciconiiformes. It also showed the different birds belonging to that order. Now, according to what it said, along with Oystercatchers, Shorebirds, Alcids and Gulls- Grebes, Loons, Pelicans, diurnal Birds of Prey and Tube-noses also belong to that order. I know, I'm probably way behind, but when did this happen? I know, you're going to tell me about 10 yrs. ago, right?

[Katy Penland]

Hi, Marcus, I moved your post over to the ID Q&A forum where it'll probably get more response. :t:

[marcus]

Ok, thanks. I'll wait and see what happens.
Oh the way, do you know anything about the question(s) I asked?

[Squonk]

Waders and gulls always used to be considered order Charadriiformes, I did a Google search for 'Charadriiformes' and came up with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charadriiformes
The bit about the Sibley-Alquist taxonomy appears to answer your question - you can click on the link there for more detail.
Hope this helps, Steve

[Katy Penland]

Oh the way, do you know anything about the question(s) I asked?Sorry, I'm afraid I don't and apologize for not saying so at the time. I'm sadly lacking on the taxonomic histories of bird species, but I see you've gotten one response so far and I'm sure others will chime in if they know. We certainly have some expert birders on the Forum who are very knowledgeable about such things. :t: Meanwhile, though, I'll see if I can find out anything further for you from other sources.

[David Swanepoel]

Marcus,
Do a search on Sibley-Alquist taxonomy. It seems Gulls, Tern, Oystercatchers and the like are still Charadriiformes - but quite a number of birds that you wouldn't expect to be related (Penguins and Eagles for instance) are regarded to be Ciconiiformes.

[Xenospiza]

Dividing the birds into "orders" is hardly backed-up by scientific proof.
Some divisions are well-supported: Paleognathae (Ratites: Ostrich, Rhea, Cassowarry, Kiwis and Tinamus) vs. Neognathae, which are divided into Galloanserae (Ducks, Screamers, Cracids, Megapodes and "Wildfowl") and Neoaves (all other birds).
Now dividing those further is a nightmare! Morphology can play nasty tricks, and DNA is yet to reveal a clear picture. A division of the Neoaves into "Coronaves" and "Metaves" has been proposed, but this is also contested...
It's a fun process to try and follow… but I bet some ornithologists are having nightmares.

[marcus]

I had to change something. Sorry.

[Ghostly Vision]

Squonk, are you the Steve of Steve fame? Permanent no. of posts. You can't get away with that, Pilot.

GV

[Squonk]

Squonk, are you the Steve of Steve fame? Permanent no. of posts. You can't get away with that, Pilot.

GV

Sorry Ghostly, you must have miscounted as my number of posts doesn't have that magical quality of the true Steve. It does go up by one each time I post something. (And no I'm not him either!)

[Colin]

Marcus,
Apologises if you already know this but very very basically, classification can be done in at least two ways, First is from a visual biological way, in other words what the animal looks like such as bill shape, leg shape and length, number of toes, habitat its in, what it eats etc etc. That is the sequence that used to be the standard and used in many older text books. The second one is by analysis of DNA and how close the DNA is between one type of animal and another. Very much more complicated than that but that is the very basics - roughly.

[marcus]

Marcus,
Apologises if you already know this but very very basically, classification can be done in at least two ways, First is from a visual biological way, in other words what the animal looks like such as bill shape, leg shape and length, number of toes, habitat its in, what it eats etc etc. That is the sequence that used to be the standard and used in many older text books. The second one is by analysis of DNA and how close the DNA is between one type of animal and another. Very much more complicated than that but that is the very basics - roughly.

Well, the place I was looking at seemed to use that second, scientific method of classification. But I guess it wasn't really.