Owl Judging from this, the Late Miocene remains from France described as ""Ardea" aureliensis" should also be restudied. The Messelasturidae, some of which were initially believed to be basal Strigiformes, are now generally accepted to be diurnal birds of prey showing some convergent evolution towards owls. The taxa often united under "Strigogyps" were formerly placed in part with the owls, specifically the Sophiornithidae; they appear to be Ameghinornithidae instead. For fossil species and paleosubspecies of extant taxa, see the genus and species articles. Unresolved and basal forms (all fossil) Fossil genera Placement unresolved Extinct Genus Fossil genera Placement unresolved Among the
Genomic evolution of birds possibility of genomic expansion in mammals and reptiles. Also, there is no such genomic loss in any vertebrate group as great as that of birds. Its possible that the early chromosomic fragmentation event that lead to the appearance of microchromosomes in birds significantly contributed to this gene loss. These fragmentation events must have taken place in a common ancestor of most birds, since approximately every two out of three species studied have at least 30 pairs of microchromosomes, 2n = 80 being the size of the average karyotype of birds (with the only exception the family Falconidae, which are 2n