cariamids

Having said that, from the morphological point of view cariamaens certainly look enough alike to be regarded as close: some phorusrhacids have previously been classified as cariamids, for example.

Goodbye, my giant predatory, cursorial, flightless hoatzin Darren Naish 2006

To return to phorusrhacids ...... in the previous posts I at least alluded to ideas about their affinities: it is universally agreed that their closest living relatives are the South American seriemas (or cariamids), and it is furthermore agreed that two fossil groups, the bathornithids of Eocene-Miocene North America and the idiornithids of Eocene-Oligocene Europe, are also close relatives of both seriemas and phorusrhacids.

Giant hoatzins of doom Darren Naish 2006

To return to phorusrhacids ...... in the previous posts I at least alluded to ideas about their affinities: it is universally agreed that their closest living relatives are the South American seriemas (or cariamids), and it is furthermore agreed that two fossil groups, the bathornithids of Eocene-Miocene North America and the idiornithids of Eocene-Oligocene Europe, are also close relatives of both seriemas and phorusrhacids.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

All of these birds – idiornithids, bathornithids, cariamids and phorusrhacids – form a clade termed the Cariamae Fürbringer, 1888, and conventionally they’ve been regarded as part of Gruiformes, the group that includes rails, cranes, trumpeters and several other groups.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

All of these birds – idiornithids, bathornithids, cariamids and phorusrhacids – form a clade termed the Cariamae Fürbringer, 1888, and conventionally they’ve been regarded as part of Gruiformes, the group that includes rails, cranes, trumpeters and several other groups.

Giant hoatzins of doom Darren Naish 2006