http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-13/oldest-squawk-box-suggests-dinosaurs-were-no-songbirds/7925728

The oldest known bird with a syrinx lived at the same time as the last dinosaurs.

The oldest known syrinx (bird voice box) has been discovered. CAT scans of fossils from a bird called Vegavis iaai that lived in Antarctica 66 million years ago, reveal the presence of a syrinx, an organ unique to birds, which enables birds to produce their amazing array of sounds. It’s always been a mystery how and when this special voice box evolved. Birds do have a larynx at the top of their windpipe, but they only use it to open and close the windpipe and do not produce any sounds with it. The syrinx sits within the lungs, just after the single trachea (windpipe) splits into two.

The syrinx enables some species of birds (such as parrots, crows, and mynas) to mimic human speech. in others it is what produces their beautiful songs.

The syrinx is arrowed.

Do all birds have a syrinx?

According to rayven80, no. Ostriches, storks and vultures don’t have one. Some independent confirmation would be good.

mollwollfumble said:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-13/oldest-squawk-box-suggests-dinosaurs-were-no-songbirds/7925728

The oldest known bird with a syrinx lived at the same time as the last dinosaurs.

The oldest known syrinx (bird voice box) has been discovered. CAT scans of fossils from a bird called Vegavis iaai that lived in Antarctica 66 million years ago, reveal the presence of a syrinx, an organ unique to birds, which enables birds to produce their amazing array of sounds. It’s always been a mystery how and when this special voice box evolved. Birds do have a larynx at the top of their windpipe, but they only use it to open and close the windpipe and do not produce any sounds with it. The syrinx sits within the lungs, just after the single trachea (windpipe) splits into two.

The syrinx enables some species of birds (such as parrots, crows, and mynas) to mimic human speech. in others it is what produces their beautiful songs.

The syrinx is arrowed.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7925736-3×2-700×467.jpg

Do all birds have a syrinx?

According to rayven80, no. Ostriches, storks and vultures don’t have one. Some independent confirmation would be good.

Oops, sorry for poor thread title. Parrots have a syrinx and are not songbirds.

It’s really quite important to know whether Vegavis iaai occurred after the ostriches split from the other birds. According to wikipedia it did. It belonged to the clade Anseriformes, the ducks and allies.

“A second specimen, MACN-PV 19.748, was found beside the holotype specimen. It was preserved in three dimensions; CT scans were again utilized to visualize the intact syrinx of this specimen. The syrinx has an asymmetrical third segment, suggesting that Vegavis had two sources of sound in the neck and along with large soft-tissue resonating structures. This indicates that it was likely capable of honks as in ducks, geese, and other basal neognaths.”

Neognaths include almost all living birds; exceptions being their sister taxon (Palaeognaths), which contains the ostriches and emus.

It wasn’t found on the continent of Antarctica, but on an island claimed by Norway, adjacent to the Antarctic Peninsula, called Vega. Did you know that the Antarctic Peninsula has dozens of Islands?

> According to rayven80, no. Ostriches, storks and vultures don’t have one. Some independent confirmation would be good.

rayven80 is wrong, sort of. Ostriches and other palaeognaths have a syrinx, but with a less complex morphology than many other birds.
That’s interesting, apparently ostriches and emus use both the larynx and syrinx for sound production. Most birds only use the syrinx.

Well, here’s your explanation of why different bird species have different songs.

mollwollfumble said:

Well, here’s your explanation of why different bird species have different songs.

It’s also fascinating to learn that the modern birds had already diversified before the dinosaurs went extinct.
Not only had the ratites (eg. emus) separated from the other birds before then, but also the group of birds comprising the loons and albatrosses had separated from the other waterbirds, the waterbirds (ducks) and chickens/hens had separated, and the screamers had separated from both the chickens and ducks.

A quick conclusion is that, not just did “birds” survive the catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs and marine reptiles, at least five distinct species of birds survived the catastrophe. To wit (too whit) the ratites, albatrosses & loons, the chicken & quail, the screamers, and the ducks & goose.

If the passerines (songbirds) were not a distinct group when the dinosaurs died, then what did they evolve from? The earliest known passerine fossils are 55 mya, after the end of the dinosaurs. The passerines evolved from a group that included near-passerine woodpeckers and kingfishers. Further back, the passerines and parrots evolved from a common ancestor. Even further back, the passerines and falcons evolved from a common ancestor. Now checking up on that further using http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1448

In addition to those five separate species of birds that lived with the dinosaurs and survived when the dinosaurs died, there must have been at least a sixth. The primordial “neoave” lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

Annoyingly, the article quoted above just claims that the neoave radiation occurred during the Mesozoic, without giving any timescale in years by which this can be confirmed.

mollwollfumble said:

A quick conclusion is that, not just did “birds” survive the catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs and marine reptiles, at least five distinct species of birds survived the catastrophe. To wit (too whit) the ratites, albatrosses & loons, the chicken & quail, the screamers, and the ducks & goose.

If the passerines (songbirds) were not a distinct group when the dinosaurs died, then what did they evolve from? The earliest known passerine fossils are 55 mya, after the end of the dinosaurs. The passerines evolved from a group that included near-passerine woodpeckers and kingfishers. Further back, the passerines and parrots evolved from a common ancestor. Even further back, the passerines and falcons evolved from a common ancestor. The primordial “neoave” lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

http://www.nature.com/article-assets/npg/ncomms/journal/v2/n8/images_hires/w926/ncomms1448-f1.jpg

Annoyingly, the article quoted above just claims that the neoave radiation occurred during the Mesozoic, without giving any timescale in years by which this can be confirmed.

Looking further, at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1834003/ , it appears that the question of whether neoaves diversified when the dinosaurs were still around remains a highly contentious question.

“Molecular clock analyses have suggested that the earliest diversification of Neoaves had already occurred in the Cretaceous. However, the palaeontological record suggests that only a few neoavian lineages existed at the end of the Cretaceous, 65  Myr ago. There is an apparent conflict between earlier molecular datings and the palaeontological record—but is this conflict real?”

The first splitting of neoaves is into “Coronaves” and “Metaves”. The Coronaves include passerines, falcons and parrots as well as aquatic groups (eg. storks) and shorebirds (eg. jacana). The Metaves include nightjar/frogmouth, pigeons, swifts and hummingbirds.

When all is said and done, the above linked paper claims that there were nine separate neoave species that survived the death of the dinosaurs. Lets see if I can figure out what those are. The ancestral:
1. Eagle
2. Passerine
3. New World Vulture
4. Parrot
5. South American Passerine, eg Tyrant-flycatcher
6. Falcon
7. Stork/Fulmar/Rail
8. Swift/Frogmouth
9. Pigeon

More on https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=1834003_rsbl20060523f02.jpg

Add that to the previous five, and that makes at least fourteen distinct species of birds that all survived when the dinosaurs died out.

Weirdly, eight out of the nine neoave species that survived the death of the dinosaurs all evolved within the scant two million years before the dinosaurs died out. Which makes me wonder.

How did the birds know that the dinosaurs and marine reptiles were about to be wiped out?
(LOL)