A phylogenomic supermatrix of Galliformes (Landfowl) reveals biased branch lengths

“…The ML tree constructed from mitochondrial sequences also shows the same topology. These findings were consistent with the findings of those reported by Dhar et al [ 6 ] and Kimball et al [ 104 ], but there are several studies showing that peafowl is closer to turkey than chicken, including phylogenetic trees constructed using single-copy orthologous genes [ 1 ].…”

“…Additionally, the generated phylogenetic trees highlight that C. coturnix, C. japonica, C. delegorguei, and C. pectoralis form a monophyletic clade for the genus Coturnix and support the replacement of C. chinensis and C. ypsilophora into the genera Excalfactoria or Synoicus [ 69 , 70 ]. Our phylogenetic tree mirrors the one generated in Kimball et al [ 8 ] and is similar to the topologies of Coturnix species reported in Kimball et al [ 7 ] and Stein et al [ 10 ]. Moreover, our findings are also consistent with prior phylogenies derived from complete mitochondrial genomes, although these studies contained a smaller number of taxa, ranging from 22 to 39 species [ 26 , 40 , 71 ].…”

“…Titanoperdix felixi is an even larger bird than P. inferna, indicating that the small size of modern Perdix is obviously a secondary trait. This agrees with the phylogenetic inference, which positions the genus Perdix among the larger-sized pheasants (Kimball, Hosner, and Braun, 2021). The phylogenetically basal species Perdix hodgsoniae (Bao et al, 2010) is found in the highlands of Central Asia (Tibet), and the oldest undoubted fossil species (P. margaritae) is also known from the Central Asian region* (Kurochkin, 1985;Zelenkov and Kurochkin, 2009).…”