EVOLUTION OF THE HELIORNITHIDAE - RECIPROCAL ILLUMINATION BY MORPHOLOGY, BIOGEOGRAPHY AND DNA HYBRIDIZATION (AVES, GRUIFORMES)

Finfoots (Heliornithidae) were chosen to test the possibility that the re has been a dramatic reversal in a suite of morphological characters , intimated by an earlier phylogenetic reconstruction of Gruiformes ba sed on DNA hybridization. There are three nodes where unstudied finfoo ts could stem from the existing reconstruction. The resulting alternat e trees have largely exclusive implications for morphological characte r suite polarity, biogeography and fossil identifications. A new DNA h ybridization study that includes all relevant taxa was intended to for m the basis for independent evaluation of the trees, but it produced r esults that conflict with the earlier DNA study. So, instead, DNA tree s were evaluated by their reproducibility and consensus with most-pars imonious trees, biogeography, paleontology and traditional classificat ions. I concur with traditional classifications that finfoots are mono phyletic, and that Limpkin (Gruiformes: Aramidae) is the sister of cra nes (Gruiformes: Gruidae). Limpkin is not supported as the sister of t he Sungrebe (Heliornis fulica) or as a member of the Heliornithiade, a s reported in the earlier DNA study. It is alarming that the gross lac k of consensus with traditional characters and concomitant implication s for character suite polarity in this case went unquestioned.