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 soft tissue allowed a molecular comparison of cellular anatomy and protein sequencing of collagen tissue published in 2007, both of which indicated that "T. rex" and birds are more closely related to each other than either is to "Alligator". A second molecular study robustly supported the relationship of birds to dinosaurs, though it did not place birds within Theropoda, as expected. This study utilized eight additional collagen sequences extracted from a femur of the "mummified" "Brachylophosaurus canadensis" specimen MOR 2598, a hadrosaur. However, these results have been very controversial. No other peptides of a Mesozoic age have been reported. In