Telluraves Telluraves Telluraves (also called land birds or core landbirds) is a recently defined clade of birds with controversial content. Based on most recent genetic studies, the clade unites a variety of bird groups, including the australavians (passerines, parrots, seriamas, and falcons) as well as the afroavians (including the Accipitrimorphae – eagles, hawks, buzzards, vultures etc – owls and woodpeckers, among others). They appear to be the sister group of a newly defined clade centered on Aequornithes. Given that the most basal extant members of both Afroaves (Accipitrimorphae, Strigiformes) and Australaves (Cariamiformes, Falconiformes) are carnivorous, it has been suggested that the
Origin of birds flight, in which developing wing structures served as a sort of parachute. Second, they achieved active flight by flapping the wings. He used "Archaeopteryx" as an example of this second stage. Finally, birds gained the ability to soar. Current thought is that feathers did not evolve from scales, as feathers are made of different proteins. More seriously, Nopcsa's theory assumes that feathers evolved as part of the evolution of flight, and recent discoveries prove that assumption is false. Feathers are very common in coelurosaurian dinosaurs (including the early tyrannosauroid "Dilong"). Modern birds are classified as coelurosaurs by nearly all palaeontologists,