Hieraves is a clade of telluravianbirds named by Wu et al. (2024) that includes the orders Strigiformes (owls) and Accipitriformes (hawks and their relatives).[1] The Cathartidae (New World vultures) are usually included in Accipitriformes,[2] but some authors treat them as a third order Cathartiformes in the Hieraves.[citation needed] In the past, either owls, New World vultures, and hawks were found to be basal outgroups with respect to Coraciimorphae inside Afroaves,[3][4] or Accipitriformes and Cathartiformes were recovered as a basal clade in respect to the rest of the members of Telluraves.[5] Houde and Braun (2019) found support for Hieraves (then unnamed), but they were found to be the sister group to Coraciimorphae and Australaves.[6] The analysis of Wu et al. (2024) has found Hieraves to be the sister clade to Australaves.[1] Stiller et al. (2024) found Hieraves to be basal to Afroaves.[7]
^Prum, Richard O.; Berv, Jacob S.; Dornburg, Alex; Field, Daniel J.; Townsend, Jeffrey P.; Lemmon, Emily Moriarty; Lemmon, Alan R. (2015). "A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing". Nature. 526 (7574): 569–573. Bibcode:2015Natur.526..569P. doi:10.1038/nature15697. ISSN0028-0836. PMID26444237. S2CID205246158.