Red-billed Tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus) against the blue sky. Adapted from Doug Greenberg, https://flic.kr/p/NeQDxD, per CC BY-NC 2.0. The genus (and family and order) name is derived from Greek mythology, in which Phaëthon was the disobedient son of the Sun and the Oceanid Clymene.

We named it #Elementaves since it’s diversified into terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial niches corresponding to the classical #elements of earth, water, and air. So, what about fire? Well, several species within Phaethontimorphae have names derived from the sun, a big ball of fire.

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 🪶