Phoenicopteriformes is a group of water

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s which comprises

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbea ...

s and their extinct relatives. Flamingos (Phoenicopteriformes) and the closely related

grebe Grebes () are aquatic diving birds in the order Podicipediformes . Grebes are widely distributed freshwater birds, with some species also found in marine habitats during migration and winter. Some flightless species exist as well, most notably ...

s ( Podicipedidae) are contained in the parent

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 ter ...

Mirandornithes.

Fossil record

Flamingos and their relatives are well attested in the fossil record, with the first unequivocal member of the Phoenicopteridae, '' Elornis'' known from the late

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...

epoch.

Relation to extinct palaelodids

The

Palaelodidae Palaelodidae is a family of extinct birds in the group Phoenicopteriformes, which today is represented only by the flamingos. They have been described as "swimming flamingos." They can be considered evolutionarily, and ecologically, intermedia ...

– an extinct family of peculiar "swimming flamingos" – are believed to be the closest relatives of the modern flamingos, with the extinct genus '' Juncitarsus'' slightly more primitive than the

which contains flamingos and

s ( Mirandornithes). The foot and wing anatomy of fossil palaelodids suggests that they were surface-swimming birds, rather than grebe-like divers as was proposed in the past. Whether swimmers or divers, that both primitive phoenicopteriforms and their closest relatives, the

s, were highly aquatic, indicates that the entire clade Mirandornithes evolved from aquatic, probably swimming ancestors.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7512165 Bird orders Extant Eocene first appearances Eocene taxonomic orders Oligocene taxonomic orders Miocene taxonomic orders Pliocene taxonomic orders Pleistocene taxonomic orders Holocene taxonomic orders Taxa named by Max Fürbringer