Flights of Fancy in Avian Evolution

摘要

People would never imagine the astonishing diversity of birds that once existed on Earth if they think only of the tiny songsters most commonly encountered around their homes and workplaces, such as cardinals, sparrows, and finches. These birds are a lovely part of our backyard life, but they represent a tiny sliver of the ecological roles that birds have explored over their 150-million-year history.