Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates. In addition to speed and strength, these predators have keen eyesight for detecting prey from a distance or during flight, strong feet with sharp talons for grasping or killing prey, and powerful, curved beaks for tearing off flesh. Although predatory birds primarily hunt live prey, many species also scavenge and eat carrion.
Cathartidae, known commonly as New World vultures or condors, are a family of birds of prey consisting of seven extant species in five genera. It includes five extant vultures and two extant condors found in the Americas. They are known as "New World" vultures to distinguish them from Old World vultures, with which the Cathartidae does not form a single clade despite the two being similar in appearance and behavior as a result of convergent evolution.
The Accipitriformes are an order of birds that includes most of the diurnal birds of prey, including hawks, eagles, vultures, and kites, but not falcons.
Otidae is a clade that includes the superorders Otidimorphae and Strisores. It was identified in 2014 by genome analysis. Earlier it was thought that Strisores was closely related to birds such as pigeons, flamingos, tropicbirds, and the sunbittern and kagu in the taxon Metaves, but subsequent work has provided evidence that Metaves is polyphyletic. Although analyses of genome data provided relatively high support for monophyly of Otidae, indicating that it is sister to all other Passerea clades, other analyses of large data matrices have not recovered a clade comprising Otidimorphae and Strisores, raising questions about the monophyly of Otidae.
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.
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.
Cariamiformes is an order of primarily flightless birds that has existed for over 50 million years. The group includes the family Cariamidae (seriemas) and the extinct families such as Phorusrhacidae, Bathornithidae, Idiornithidae and Ameghinornithidae. Extant members (seriemas) are only known from South America, but fossils of many extinct taxa are also found in other continents including Europe and North America. Though traditionally considered a suborder within Gruiformes, both morphological and genetic studies show that it belongs to a separate group of birds, Australaves, whose other living members are Falconidae, Psittaciformes and Passeriformes.
Eufalconimorphae is a proposed clade of birds, consisting of passerines, parrots, falcons, caracaras, and forest falcons. It has whole-genome DNA support. This clade was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Falco subbuteo and Passer domesticus". Eufalconimorphae birds are characterized by their strong and hooked beaks, sharp talons, and powerful wings. They have excellent eyesight, which allows them to spot their prey from great distances. The Eufalconimorphae is noted to produce aerodynamic force during the upstroke of flight to help create a vertical flight pattern.
Strisores, sometimes called nightbirds, is a clade of birds that includes the living families and orders Caprimulgidae, Nyctibiidae (potoos), Steatornithidae (oilbirds), Podargidae (frogmouths), Apodiformes, as well as the Aegotheliformes (owlet-nightjars) whose distinctness was only recently realized. The Apodiformes and the Aegotheliformes form the Daedalornithes.
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) and raptors (Accipitriformes). 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".
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.
Archelosauria is a clade grouping turtles and archosaurs and their fossil relatives, to the exclusion of lepidosaurs. The majority of phylogenetic analyses based on molecular data have supported a sister-group relationship between turtles and archosaurs. On the other hand, Archelosauria had not been historically supported by most morphological analyses, which have instead found turtles to either be descendants of parareptiles, early-diverging diapsids outside of Sauria, or close relatives of lepidosaurs within the clade Ankylopoda. Some recent morphological analyses have also found support for Archelosauria.
Austrodyptornithes is a clade of birds that include the orders Sphenisciformes (penguins) and Procellariiformes. A 2014 analysis of whole genomes of 48 representative bird species concluded that penguins are the sister group of Procellariiformes, from which they diverged about 60 million years ago.
Accipitrimorphae is a clade of birds of prey that include the orders Cathartiformes and Accipitriformes. However, this group might be a junior synonym of Accipitriformes. The DNA-based proposal and the NACC and IOC classifications include the New World vultures in the Accipitriformes, but the SACC classifies the New World vultures as a separate order, the Cathartiformes which has been adopted here. The placement of the New World vultures has been unclear since the early 1990s. The reason for this is the controversial systematic history of the New World vultures as they were assumed to be more related to Ciconiidae after Sibley and Ahlquist work on their DNA-DNA hybridization studies conducted in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The stork-vulture relationship has seemed to not be supported. Regardless of whether to use Accipitrimorphae or Accipitriformes, these birds belong to the clade Telluraves.
Picodynastornithes is a clade that contains the orders Coraciiformes and Piciformes. This grouping also has current and historical support from molecular and morphological studies. This group was defined in the PhyloCode by George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Coracias garrulus, Alcedo atthis, and Picus viridis".
Aequorlitornithes is a clade of waterbirds recovered in a comprehensive genomic systematic study using nearly 200 species in 2015. It contains the clades Charadriiformes, Mirandornithes and Phaethoquornithes. Previous studies have found different placement for the clades in the tree.
The genomic evolution of birds has come under scrutiny since the advent of rapid DNA sequencing, as birds have the smallest genomes of the amniotes despite acquiring highly derived phenotypic traits. Whereas mammalian and reptilian genomes range between 1.0 and 8.2 giga base pairs (Gb), avian genomes have sizes between 0.91 Gb and 1.3 Gb. Avian genomes reflect the action of natural selection and are the basis of their phenotypes, reflected in their morphology and behaviour, which have evolved significantly since their divergence from other archosaurian, diapsid, and amniotic lineages.
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.
