Neoptera is a classification group that includes most orders of the winged insects, specifically those that can flex their wings over their abdomens. This is in contrast with the more basal orders of winged insects, which are unable to flex their wings in this way.
The insect order Zoraptera, commonly known as angel insects, contains small and soft bodied insects with two forms: winged with wings sheddable as in termites, dark and with eyes (compound) and ocelli (simple); or wingless, pale and without eyes or ocelli. They have a characteristic nine-segmented beaded (moniliform) antenna. They have mouthparts adapted for chewing and are mostly found under bark, in dry wood or in leaf litter.
Holometabola, also known as Endopterygota, is a superorder of insects within the infraclass Neoptera that go through distinctive larval, pupal, and adult stages. They undergo a radical metamorphosis, with the larval and adult stages differing considerably in their structure and behaviour. This is called holometabolism, or complete metamorphism.
In cladistics or phylogenetics, an outgroup is a more distantly related group of organisms that serves as a reference group when determining the evolutionary relationships of the ingroup, the set of organisms under study, and is distinct from sociological outgroups. The outgroup is used as a point of comparison for the ingroup and specifically allows for the phylogeny to be rooted. Because the polarity (direction) of character change can be determined only on a rooted phylogeny, the choice of outgroup is essential for understanding the evolution of traits along a phylogeny.
Streptophyta, informally the streptophytes, is a clade of plants. The composition of the clade varies considerably between authors, but the definition employed here includes land plants and all green algae except the Chlorophyta and the more basal Prasinodermophyta.
Viridiplantae constitute a clade of eukaryotic organisms that comprises approximately 450,000–500,000 species that play important roles in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They include the green algae, which are primarily aquatic, and the land plants (embryophytes), which emerged from within them. Green algae traditionally excludes the land plants, rendering them a paraphyletic group. However it is accurate to think of land plants as a kind of alga. Since the realization that the embryophytes emerged from within the green algae, some authors are starting to include them. They have cells with cellulose in their cell walls, and primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria that contain chlorophylls a and b and lack phycobilins. Corroborating this, a basal phagotroph archaeplastida group has been found in the Rhodelphydia.
Neoaves is a clade that consists of all modern birds with the exception of Palaeognathae and Galloanserae. Almost 95% of the roughly 10,000 known species of extant birds belong to the Neoaves.
Euteleostei, whose members are known as euteleosts, is a clade of bony fishes within Teleostei that evolved some 240 million years ago, although the oldest known fossil remains are only from the Early Cretaceous. It is divided into Protacanthopterygii and Neoteleostei.
Paraneoptera or Acercaria is a superorder of insects which includes lice, thrips, and hemipterans, the true bugs. It also includes the extinct order Permopsocida, known from fossils dating from the Early Permian to the mid-Cretaceous.
The subphylum Hexapoda or hexapods comprises the largest clade of arthropods and includes most of the extant arthropod species. It includes the crown group class Insecta, as well as the much smaller class Entognatha, which includes three groups of wingless arthropods that were once considered insects: Collembola (springtails), Protura (coneheads) and Diplura. The insects and springtails are very abundant and are some of the most important pollinators, basal consumers, scavengers/detritivores and micropredators in terrestrial environments.
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.
Panorpida or Mecopterida is a proposed superorder of Holometabola. The conjectured monophyly of the Panorpida is historically based on morphological evidence, namely the reduction or loss of the ovipositor and several internal characteristics, including a muscle connecting a pleuron and the first axillary sclerite at the base of the wing, various features of the larval maxilla and labium, and basal fusion of CuP and A1 veins in the hind wings. The monophyly of the Panorpida is supported by recent molecular data.
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. They appear to be the sister group of the Phaethoquornithes.
Percomorpha is a large clade of ray-finned fish with more than 17 000 known species that includes the tuna, seahorses, gobies, cichlids, flatfish, wrasse, perches, anglerfish, and pufferfish.
Alienopteridae is an extinct family of dictyopterans, known from the Mid-Cretaceous to Eocene. They are noted for their unusual combination of features not found in other dictyopterans.
The cohort Polyneoptera is one of the major groups of winged insects, comprising the Orthoptera and all other neopteran insects believed to be more closely related to Orthoptera than to any other insect orders. They were formerly grouped together with the Palaeoptera and Paraneoptera as the Hemimetabola or Exopterygota on the grounds that they have no metamorphosis, the wings gradually developing externally throughout the nymphal stages. Many members of the group have leathery forewings (tegmina) and hindwings with an enlarged anal field (vannus).
Hymenopterida is a superorder of holometabolous (metamorphosing) insects. As originally circumscribed, it included Hymenoptera and the orders in Panorpida. However, more recent studies find Hympenoptera as sister to the other members of Holometabola and the superorder is restricted to Hymenoptera.
Condylognatha or Panhemiptera is a monophyletic grouping (superorder) that contains Hemiptera and Thysanoptera (thrips). Condylognatha belongs to Paraneoptera, which include its sister group, lice (Psocodea).
Hieraves is a clade of telluravian birds named by Wu et al. (2024) that includes the orders Strigiformes (owls), Cathartiformes, and Accipitriformes. In the past, either owls, New World vultures, and hawks were found to be basal outgroups with respect to Coraciimorphae inside Afroaves, or Accipitriformes and Cathartiformes were recovered as a basal clade in respect to the rest of the members of Telluraves. Houde and Braun (2019) found support for Hieraves, but they were found to be the sister group to Coraciimorphae and Australaves. The analysis of Wu et al. (2024) has found Hieraves to be the sister clade to Australaves. Stiller et al. (2024) found Hieraves to be basal to Afroaves.
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.
