page_title: Loon
section_title: Relationships
hierarchical_section_title: Loon / Systematics and evolution / Relationships
caption_attribution_description: Waimanu manneringi, an extinct penguin from the Middle Oligocene of New Zealand.
context_page_description: The loons or divers are a group of aquatic birds found in many parts of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus Gavia, family Gaviidae and order Gaviiformes.
context_section_description: The loons were formerly often considered to be the most ancient of the northern hemisphere bird families; this idea grew basically out of the perceived similarity of shape and (probably) habits between loons and the entirely unrelated extinct Cretaceous order Hesperornithiformes. In particular Enaliornis, which was apparently an ancestral and plesiomorphic member of that order, was sometimes used to support claims of Albian (Early Cretaceous) Gaviiformes.
  More recently, it has become clear that the Anseriformes (waterfowl) and the Galliformes are the most ancient groups of modern birds. It is possible, though not at all well-supported, that these were distinct by the end of the Albian 100 million years ago (Ma). Loons belong to a more modern radiation. They were once believed to be related to grebes, which are also foot-propelled diving birds, and both species were once classified together under the order Colymbiformes. However, as long ago as the 1930s, it was determined that the two groups are not that closely related at all and are merely the product of convergent evolution and adapted in a similar way to a similar ecological niche. The similarity is so strong that even the most modern cladistic analyses of general anatomical features are easily misled into grouping loons and grebes.
  The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy still allied the loons with the grebes in its massively paraphyletic "Ciconiiformes", and it is almost certain that the relationships of loons lie with some of the orders placed therein. Namely, other recent authors have considered loons to share a rather close relationship with seabirds such as penguins (Sphenisciformes), tubenoses (Procellariiformes), waders (Charadriiformes) – and perhaps the newly discovered clade Mirandornithes which unites grebes (Podicipediformes) and their closest living relatives, the flamingos (Phoenicopteriformes). It is perhaps notable that some early penguins had skulls and beaks that were in many aspects similar to those of the living and fossil Gaviiformes.
caption: The Paleocene Waimanu (an early member of the Sphenisciformes) resembled loons in some aspects of its head and bill, but it was already flightless and used its feet for steering rather than propulsion
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