Kingdom Animalia Clade Euavialae Higher classification Euavialae | Phylum Chordata Scientific name Avebrevicauda | |
 | ||
Clade Avebrevicauda
Paul, 2002 Lower classifications Bird, Enantiornithes, Hesperornis | ||
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.
The cladogram below follows the results of a phylogenetic study by Wang et al., 2016.
References
Avebrevicauda Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA