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
Evolution of birds to create variations on wild species. In some birds this is limited to color variations, while others are bred for larger egg or meat production, for flightlessness or other characteristics. Evolution of birds The evolution of birds began in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropoda dinosaurs named Paraves. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. For more than a century, the small theropod dinosaur "Archaeopteryx lithographica" from the Late Jurassic period was considered to have been the earliest bird. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. According to the current