Exhaustive family tree for birds shows recent, rapid diversification

[Minimalist]

http://news.yale.edu/2012/10/31/exhausti...sification

A Yale-led scientific team has produced the most comprehensive family tree for birds to date, connecting all living bird species — nearly 10,000 in total — and revealing surprising new details about their evolutionary history and its geographic context.

Analysis of the family tree shows when and where birds diversified — and that birds’ diversification rate has increased over the last 50 million years, challenging the conventional wisdom of biodiversity experts.

The creatards will of course go straight to denial.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, the degree of diversification of birds may have increased in the last 50 million years, it is still much below where it was 65 million ago. Most bird lineages went extinct with the Dinosaurs.