Avebrevicauda (meaning "birds with short tails") is a group which includes all avialan species with ten or fewer free vertebrae in the tail. The group was named in 2002 by Gregory S. Paul to distinguish short-tailed avialans from their ancestors, such as Archaeopteryx, which had long, reptilian tails.[1]
The cladogram below follows the results of a phylogenetic study by Wang et al., 2016.[2]
^Paul, G.S. (2002). Dinosaurs of the Air. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 460 pp.
^Wang M., Wang X., Wang Y., and Zhou Z. (2016). A new basal bird from China with implications for morphological diversity in early birds. Scientific Reports, 6: 19700. doi:10.1038/srep19700.
