Pangalliformes is the scientific name of a provisional

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

of birds within the group Galloanserae. It is defined as all birds more closely related to

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

s than to

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...

s, and includes all modern chickens, turkeys, pheasants, and megapodes, as well as extinct species that do not fall within the crown group

Galliformes Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl. Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often ...

. A few fragmentary

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s have been described as pangalliforms from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

(85 million years ago), most notably those of ''

Austinornis lentus ''Austinornis'' is a genus of prehistoric birds related to Galliformes. It is known from a fossil partial tarsometatarsus from the Late Cretaceous of Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central regi ...

''. Formerly referred to as ''

Ichthyornis ''Ichthyornis'' (meaning "fish bird", after its fish-like vertebrae) is an extinct genus of toothy seabird-like ornithuran from the late Cretaceous period of North America. Its fossil remains are known from the chalks of Alberta, Alabama, Kansa ...

lentus'', ''

Graculavus ''Graculavus'' is a prehistoric bird genus that was described in the 19th century by American paleontologist O. C. Marsh. Its remains were found in the Late Cretaceous Austin Chalk of Texas, USA, and Lance Formation (late Maastrichtian faunal sta ...

lentus'', or '' Pedioecetes lentus'', its partial left

tarsometatarsus The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...

was found in the Late Cretaceous

Austin Chalk The Austin Chalk is an upper Cretaceous geologic formation in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. It is named after type section outcrops near Austin, Texas. The formation is made up of chalk and marl. Fossils The putative galloanseran ...

near Fort McKinney, Texas. This bird was quite certainly closely related to Galliformes, but whether it was a part of these or belongs elsewhere in the little-known galliform branch of Galloanserae is not clear. In 2004, Clarke classified it within Pangalliformes rather than true Galliformes, pending further fossil finds. Another specimen, PVPH 237, from the Late Cretaceous

Portezuelo Formation The Portezuelo Formation is a geologic formation of Late Cretaceous ( Late Turonian to Early Coniacian) age, outcropping in the Mendoza, Río Negro and Neuquén provinces of Argentina.Turonian The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded by t ...

Coniacian The Coniacian is an age or stage in the geologic timescale. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series and spans the time between 89.8 ± 1 Ma and 86.3 ± 0.7 Ma (million years ago). The Coniacian is preceded by t ...

, about 90 Ma) in the

Sierra de Portezuelo Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following: Places Mountains and mountain ranges * Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico * Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...

(

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

) has also been suggested to be an early relative of true galliformes. This is a partial

coracoid A coracoid (from Greek κόραξ, ''koraks'', raven) is a paired bone which is part of the shoulder assembly in all vertebrates except therian mammals (marsupials and placentals). In therian mammals (including humans), a coracoid process is prese ...

of a neornithine bird, which in its general shape and particularly the wide and deep attachment for the muscle joining the coracoid and the

humerus The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...

bone resembles the more basal lineages of galliforms.Agnolin ''et al.'' (2006) Additional galliform-like pangalliformes are represented by

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

families from the

Paleogene The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million yea ...

, namely the Gallinuloididae, Paraortygidae and

Quercymegapodiidae Quercymegapodiidae is an extinct group of stem Galliformes birds with fossils found in France and Brazil.Mayr, Gerald (2009) ''Paleogene Fossil Birds''. Berlin: Springer. References

Quercymegapodiidae, Paleogene birds of Europe Pale ...

. In the early

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

, some additional birds may or may not be early Galliformes, though even if they are, it is rather unlikely that these belong to extant families: * †'' Argillipes'' (London Clay Early Eocene of England) * †'' Coturnipes'' (Early Eocene of England, and Virginia, USA?) * †'' Paleophasianus'' (Willwood Early Eocene of Bighorn County, USA) * †'' Percolinus'' (London Clay Early Eocene of England) * †''"Palaeorallus" alienus'' (middle Oligocene of Tatal-Gol, Mongolia) * †'' Anisolornis'' (Santa Cruz Middle Miocene of Karaihen, Argentina) More recently, it has been discovered that ''

Sylviornis ''Sylviornis'', also known by its native name of Du, is an extinct genus of large, flightless bird that was endemic to the islands of New Caledonia in the Western Pacific. It is considered to constitute one of two genera in the extinct family ...

'' and its sister taxa, '' Megavitiornis'', lay outside the Galliformes crown group. This same study also presents

Dromornithidae Dromornithidae, known as mihirungs and informally as thunder birds or demon ducks, were a clade of large, flightless Australian birds of the Oligocene through Pleistocene Epochs. All are now extinct. They were long classified in Struthioniform ...

as possibly closer to

than to

Anseriformes Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which in ...

as traditionally expected, though it acknowledges more work to be needed in this field.

References

Further reading