Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines owing to morphological and ecological similarities; the group corresponds to some extent with the Anomalogonatae of Alfred Henry Garrod.
The Pelecanidae is a family of pelecaniform birds within the Pelecani that contains three genera: the extinct Eopelecanus and Miopelecanus and the extant Pelecanus.
Neognathae is an infraclass of birds, called neognaths, within the class Aves of the clade Archosauria. Neognathae includes the majority of living birds; the exceptions being the tinamous and the flightless ratites, which belong instead to the sister taxon Palaeognathae. There are nearly 10,000 living species of neognaths.
Neoaves is a clade that consists of all modern birds with the exception of Palaeognathae and Galloanserae. This group is defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the most inclusive crown clade containing Passer domesticus, but not Gallus gallus". Almost 95% of the roughly 10,000 known species of extant birds belong to the Neoaves.
Mirandornithes is a clade that consists of flamingos and grebes. Many scholars use the term Phoenicopterimorphae for the superorder containing flamingoes and grebes.
Aequornithes, or core water birds, are defined as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Pelecanus onocrotalus and Gavia immer".
The order Falconiformes is represented by the extant family Falconidae and a handful of enigmatic Paleogene species. Traditionally, the other bird of prey families Cathartidae, Sagittariidae (secretarybird), Pandionidae (ospreys), Accipitridae (hawks) were classified in Falconiformes. A variety of comparative genome analyses published since 2008, however, found that falcons are part of a clade of birds called Australaves, which also includes seriemas, parrots and passerines. Within Australaves falcons are more closely related to the parrot-passerine clade than they are to the seriemas. The hawks, vultures and owls are placed in the clade Afroaves.
Psittacopasseres is a taxon of birds consisting of the Passeriformes and Psittaciformes (parrots). Per Ericson and colleagues, in analysing genomic DNA, revealed a lineage comprising passerines, psittacines and Falconiformes. The group was proposed following an alignment of nuclear intron sequences by Shannon Hackett et al. in 2008. It was formally named as Psittacopasserae in a 2011 Nature Communications article by Alexander Suh and other authors working with Jürgen Schmitz's group, based on genetic analysis of the insertion of retroposons into the genomes of key avian lineages over the course of evolution during the Mesozoic Era. This clade was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as the least inclusive crown clade containing Psittacus erithacus and Passer domesticus.
Australaves is a clade of birds, defined in 2012, consisting of the Eufalconimorphae as well as the Cariamiformes. They appear to be the sister group of Afroaves. This clade was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Cariama cristata and Passer domesticus".
Afroaves is a clade of birds, consisting of the kingfishers and kin (Coraciiformes), woodpeckers and kin (Piciformes), hornbills and kin (Bucerotiformes), trogons (Trogoniformes), cuckoo roller (Leptosomiformes), mousebirds (Coliiformes), owls (Strigiformes), raptors (Accipitriformes) and New World vultures (Cathartiformes). The most basal clades are predatory, suggesting the last common ancestor of Afroaves was also a predatory bird. This group was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Accipiter nisus, Colius colius, and Picus viridis, but not Passer domesticus".
Corvoidea is a superfamily of birds in the order of Passeriformes.
Telluraves is a recently defined clade of birds defined by their arboreality. Based on most recent genetic studies, the clade unites a variety of bird groups, including the australavians as well as the afroavians. This grouping was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Accipiter nisus and Passer domesticus". They appear to be the sister group of the Phaethoquornithes.
Passerea is a clade of neoavian birds that was proposed by Jarvis et al. (2014). Their genomic analysis recovered two major clades within Neoaves, Passerea and Columbea, and concluded that both clades appear to have many ecologically driven convergent traits.
Gruimorphae is a clade of birds that contains the orders Charadriiformes and Gruiformes identified by molecular analysis. This grouping has had historical support, as various charadriiform families such as the families Pedionomidae and Turnicidae were classified as gruiforms. It may also have support from the fossil record since the discovery of Nahmavis from the Early Eocene of North America.
Phaethoquornithes is a clade of birds that contains Eurypygimorphae and Aequornithes, which was first recovered by genome analysis in 2014. Members of Eurypygimorphae were originally classified in the obsolete group Metaves, and Aequornithes were classified as the sister taxon to Musophagiformes or Gruiformes.
Columbaves is a clade that contains Columbimorphae and Otidimorphae discovered by genomic analysis by Prum et al. (2015). This conflicts with the Columbea and Otidae hypotheses which Mirandornithes are the sister taxon to Columbimorphae and Cypselomorphae the sister taxon to Otidimorphae, respectively, found by Jarvis et al. (2014). Neither hypothesis supports the two subdivisions of Metaves and Coronoaves as previous studies had found.
Pangalloanserae is a clade of birds defined in a 2001 study by Jacques Gauthier and Kevin de Queiroz as "most inclusive clade containing Galloanserae but not Neoaves". It contains crown Galloanserae as well as all stem-galloanserans.
Muscicapida is a clade of birds in the order Passeriformes. Oliveros, C.H. et al. (2019) suggested a gondwanan migration of this lineage from Australia to Eurasia.
Emberizoidea is a superfamily of passerines that are referred to as the New World nine-primaried oscines that includes majority of endemics which are exclusive to the New World. Nearly 892 species belong to this group as it includes buntings, American sparrows, the New World blackbirds, the parulid warblers, the cardinals, and the tanagers.
Litusilvanae is a proposed clade of birds, position as the sister clade to Aequorlitornithes. This clade comprises Gruimorphae and Strisores. While different lines of evidence from molecular, morphology and the fossil record has found support in the clades Gruimorphae and Strisores Wu et al. (2024) was the first to find support in such a novel sister group relationship between these two taxa.
