Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Passerines - Perching birds

The origins of  Passeriformes (perching birds) has been suggested in 2 papers on the analysis of DNA sequences of the New Zealand wrens Acanthusitta, to have occurred in Gondwana, as the wrens are shown to be at the base of passerine radiation. And neither paper supports the hypothesis that the mostly Australian-Papuan Corvida and the Afro-Eurasian Passerida are sister groups. The Passerida  appear to belong within the Corvida, suggesting an origin in eastern Gondwana, Australia and New Guinea (New Zealand was part of Australia at the time).

These studies also support an origin in the Cretaceous, supporting other evidence that has been accumulating from palaeontology, phylogeny, and molecular studies

Murgon Fossil Site

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VJ1-465RY83-5&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F01%2F2002&_alid=968464352&_rdoc=8&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6081&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=f&_ct=20&_

acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0b8e4b399b5cd96129169a06feec4655

Sources & Further reading

Mary E White, After the Greening, The Browning of Australia, Kangaroo Press, 1994

Birds