Haemoproteus insects including mosquitoes, biting midges ("Culicoides"), louse flies ("Hippoboscidae") and tabanid flies ("Tabanidae"). Infection with this genus is sometimes known as pseudomalaria because of the parasites' similarities with "Plasmodium" species. Within the genus there are at least 173 species, 5 varieties and 1 subspecies. Of these over 140 occur in birds, 16 in reptiles and 3 in amphibia: 14 orders and 50 families of birds are represented. These include gamebirds ("Galliformes"), waterfowl ("Anseriformes"), raptors ("Accipitriformes", "Falconiformes", "Strigiformes"), pigeons and doves ("Columbiformes"), and perching birds or songbirds ("Passeriformes"). The first description of this genus was in 1890 by Kruse who described
Genomic evolution of birds several modifications and deletions which occurred in the exons of the genes implicated in the formation of enamel and dentine. It is thought that the common ancestor of birds already lacked mineralized teeth, and that later genome changes pushed the situation to the current status. Also, birds have the best vision system known in vertebrates. They have a higher number of photoreceptors, and most birds are tetrachromats. The only exception are penguins, which have only three functional opsin genes (and hence are trichromats). This exception could be related to the aquatic lifestyle, since marine mammals have also lost either one