Illustrating Bird10K by reusing my old collage of Elementaves bird species, arranged following the classical elements, from bottom to top, of water, earth, air, and fire. All images with CC0 license, unless otherwise stated. Water: Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti), Common Loon (Gavia immer). Earth: Indian Nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus) [Hari K Patibanda, https://flic.kr/p/2oM6rs3, CC BY-NC 2.0], Tasmanian Nativehen (Tribonyx mortierii). Air: Common Swift (Apus apus), Stripe-tailed Hummingbird (Eupherusa eximia). Fire: Sunbittern (Eurypygia helias) [Jean Ogden, https://flic.kr/p/2puQRv2, CC BY 2.0], White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus).

I ran this side project for @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social w great collabs: Gerald Mayr (Dr Bones & Rapid-write) and Chen Guangji & Feng Shaohong (of #B10K #Bird10K, saving the day when supposedly public data was not so public).

Special thx to Piotr Gryz for cave rail pic!

Collage of Elementaves bird species, arranged following the classical elements, from bottom to top, of water, earth, air, and fire. All images with CC0 license, unless otherwise stated. Water: Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti), Common Loon (Gavia immer). Earth: Indian Nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus) [Hari K Patibanda, https://flic.kr/p/2oM6rs3, CC BY-NC 2.0], Tasmanian Nativehen (Tribonyx mortierii). Air: Common Swift (Apus apus), Stripe-tailed Hummingbird (Eupherusa eximia). Fire: Sunbittern (Eurypygia helias) [Jean Ogden, https://flic.kr/p/2puQRv2, CC BY 2.0], White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus).

BOOM, #BirdTwitter! Flashy new family tree of #birds just landed in @Nature: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... From the #B10K #Bird10K project, led by Josefin Stiller, using nearly 1 BILLION ACT&Gs, we improve age estimates vastly & introduce cool new clade #Elementaves. 🧵
 
#ornithology #phylogenomics 🪶