For a list of birds extinct in Late Quaternary prehistoric times and (usually) known from specimens not completely fossilized, see List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species. For birds that have gone extinct since the year 1500, see List of extinct bird species since 1500.
A replica of the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx, most famous of prehistoric "birds". Modern research considers it unlikely to be a bird ancestor, though it was certainly a close relative of these.
Birds evolved from certain feathered theropod dinosaurs, and there is no real dividing line between birds and non-avian dinosaurs except that some of the former survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event while the latter did not. For the purposes of this article, a 'bird' is considered to be any member of the clade Aves in the broadest sense.[1] Some dinosaur groups which may or may not be true birds are listed below under Proto-birds.
This page contains a listing of prehistoric bird taxa only known from completely fossilized specimens. These extinctions took place before the Late Quaternary and thus took place in the absence of significant human interference. While the earliest hominids had been eating birds and especially their eggs, human population and technology was simply insufficient to seriously affect healthy bird populations until the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Rather, reasons for the extinctions listed here are stochastic abiotic events such as bolide impacts, climate changes due to orbital shifts, mass volcanic eruptions etc. Alternatively, species may have gone extinct due to evolutionary displacement by successor or competitor taxa – it is notable that an extremely large number of seabirds have gone extinct during the mid-Tertiary; this seems at least partly due to competition by the contemporary radiation of marine mammals.
The relationships of these taxa are often hard to determine, as many are known only from very fragmentary remains and due to the complete fossilization precluding analysis of information from DNA, RNA or protein sequencing. The taxa listed in this article should be classified with the Wikipedia conservation status category "Fossil".
Before the late 19th century, when minerals were still considered one of the kingdoms of binomial nomenclature, fossils were often treated according to a parallel taxonomy. Rather than assigning them to animal or plant genera, they were treated as mineral genera and given binomial names typically using Osteornis ("bone-bird") or Ornitholithus ("bird fossil") as "genus". The latter name, however, is still in use for an oogenus of fossil bird eggs. Also, other animals (in particular pterosaurs) were placed in these "genera". In sources pre-dating the Linnean system, the above terms are also seen in the more extensive descriptions used to name taxa back then.
^Sereno (2005)
and 23 Related for: List of fossil bird genera information
plant genera, they were treated as mineral genera and given binomial names typically using Osteornis ("bone-bird") or Ornitholithus ("birdfossil") as...
Lists ofbirds by region Extinct birdsListof recently extinct bird species Listof Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species Listoffossilbirdgenera List...
Paleontology portal History of science portal This listoffossil arthropods described in 2018 is a listof new taxa of trilobites, fossil insects, crustaceans...
Icterus turmalis (Peru) Listof extinct bird species since 1500 Listoffossilbirdgenera Lists of extinct species Flightless bird Holocene extinction event...
subspecies of the spotted towhee. Bird extinction Dinosaur Flightless bird Holocene extinction Lazarus taxon Listofbird extinctions by year Listoffossil bird...
This listof pterosaurs is a comprehensive listingof all genera that have ever been included in the order Pterosauria, excluding purely vernacular terms...
Allen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's generaofbirds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335. hdl:2246/678...
since 1500 List of Late Quaternary prehistoric bird species List of fossilbirdgenera "Anatidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics...
living fossil is an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the...
although fossil remains show they once occurred there[citation needed] and occasional vagrants are found. Albatrosses are among the largest of flying birds, and...
epoch of geologic time to which the fossils date. Genera that are invalid, misidentified, or otherwise do not represent a valid Mesozoic bird are listed as...
period in which many modern generaofbirds became recognizable in the fossil record. As of 2021, the oldest falconid fossil is estimated to be 55 million...
Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to...
genus-level phylogeny of the family. As per the IOU, the IUCN Red List and BirdLife International, the family contains 7 genera: Prior to 2021, the IOU...
Nyctibiiformes. There are seven species in two genera in tropical Central and South America. Fossil evidence indicates that they also inhabited Europe...
The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus Scolopax. The genus name is Latin for a snipe or...
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