Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 18:41:12 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norm Saunders Subject: Re: Bird Orders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marcus James asks: ----- Original Message ----- > I was at the Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter, and > when I looked up the taxonomy of the Anhinga, I read that > it belonged to the order Ciconiiformes, and there was a > list of different of birds which are also in that order, including > albatrosses, auks, cormorants, diurnal birds of prey, grebes, > herons, loons, penguins and shorebirds. > > I thought all those birds belonged to different orders, but I > might be thinking of old ornithology. Do they all belong to > the same order now? When did ornithologists come up with > that conclusion? Is it possible you may be confusing order and family? Orders give us a very broad-brush description of a group of birds, which is then broken into the groups you were mentioning at the family level of detail. Most field guides group birds by families and seldom mention order since that concept groups so many seemingly disparate families together. I'm sure others will not hesitate to jump into the discussion as well. While they do, I'll compare the last few AOU checklists just to make sure I'm not saying something totally wrong. Best, Norm ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================