Gaviiformes

Gaviiformes is an order of aquatic birds containing the loons or divers and their closest extinct relatives. Modern gaviiformes are found in many parts of North America and northern Eurasia (Europe, Asia and debatably Africa), though prehistoric species were more widespread. There are five living species, and all are placed in the genus Gavia. The loons were formerly often considered to be the most ancient of the northern hemisphere bird families; this idea grew basically out of the perceived similarity of shape and (probably) habits between loons and the entirely unrelated extinct Cretaceous order Hesperornithiformes. In particular Enaliornis, which was apparently an ancestral and plesiomorphic member of that order, was sometimes used to support claims of Albian (Early Cretaceous) Gaviiformes. More recently, it has become clear that the Anseriformes (waterfowl) and the Galliformes are the most ancient groups of modern birds, and these being distinct by the end of the Albian 100 million years ago (Ma), while just possible, is not at all well-supported. Loons belong to a more modern radiation. They were once believed to be related to grebes, which are also foot-propelled diving birds, and both groups were once classified together under the order Colymbiformes. However, as recently as the 1930s, it was determined that the two groups are not that closely related at all and are merely the product of convergent evolution and adapted in a similar way to a similar ecological niche. The similarity is so strong that even the most modern cladistic analyses of general anatomical features are easily misled into grouping loons and grebes. The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy still allied the loons with the grebes in its massively paraphyletic "Ciconiiformes", and it is almost certain that the relationships of loons lie with some of the orders placed therein.