Specific traits are based on evolutionary history called characters shared as common ancestors. In classifying birds, Thomas Huxley had the idea of arranging the bones of the avian bony plate, a skeletal partition between the nasal cavities and the mouth to assemble a grouping. Since Huxley set a foundation, scientists started adding more detailed characteristics such as muscles, vocalization, and toes to the group of birds but in more specific details.
After the characteristics are grouped properly, birds can be present in different orders. Orders can be branch out from common ancestors with unique characters that are easy to distinguish from the rest. Songbirds, member of Passeriformes have unique morphological traits. The more complex traits are, there is a better chance that the species won’t be related. Foot structure of birds is one of many examples that prove how species are related. As years go by, technology makes it clearer and easier to find similarities and differences among species because not only the physical anatomy and morphologies but also DNA sequencing plays a big role in birds classification.
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