The origin and early radiation of birds

According to Fisher (1967), the first described avian paleospecies was Larus toliapicus (Konig 1825). Thus, the story of fossil birds barely exceeds 150 years, and the 100 years of the American Ornithologists' Union include nearly two-thirds of this. During most of this time, a major burden for paleornithologists has been a lack of comparative skeletons of recent birds. We are now beginning to solve this problem, and modern collections exist with thousands of skeletons covering about two-thirds of the world's species.