Comparative anatomy of the passerine carpometacarpus helps illuminate the early fossil record of crown Passeriformes.

ABSTRACT: The hyper-diverse clade Passeriformes (crown group passerines) comprises over half of extant bird diversity, yet disproportionately few studies have targeted passerine comparative anatomy on a broad phylogenetic scale. This general lack of research attention hinders efforts to interpret the passerine fossil record and obscures patterns of morphological evolution across one of the most diverse clades of extant vertebrates. Numerous potentially important crown passeriform fossils have proven challenging to place phylogenetically, due in part to a paucity of phylogenetically informative characters from across the passerine skeleton. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the morphology of extant passerine carpometacarpi, which are relatively abundant components of the passerine fossil record

SUBMITTER: Steell EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9919509 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature