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Extinct family of birds From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sophiornithidae (literally "wisdom birds") are an extinct family of chicken-sized predatory birds that lived from the Paleocene to the Eocene periods of the Cenozoic, and were found primarily in Europe, and are thought to be primitive owls.
Sophiornithidae | |
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Sophiornis, Strigogyps, Necrobyas | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Strigiformes (?) |
Family: | Sophiornithidae |
Genera | |
and see text |
The French genera Berruornis (Late Paleocene to Late Eocene/Early Oligocene), as well as Palaeotyto and Palaeobyas from Quercy, are sometimes placed in this family. The latter might instead be barn-owls, while the first might be a very basal owl but not an actual sophiornithid. Strigogyps was placed here for a time, but it has been revised several times since then[1][2][3] and appears to be an ameghinornitid; these were distant relatives of the seriemas.
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