Roald L. Potapov¹ & Thomas S. Schulenberg²

Potapov, R.L. & Schulenberg, T.S. 1999. Origin of African avifaunas. In: Adams, N.J. & Slotow, R.H. (eds) Proc. 22 Int. Ornithol. Congr., Durban: 3041. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa.

The biogeographic origins and the natural history of the African and Madagascar avifaunas have attracted the attention of ornithologists from the times of P. Sclater through to the present. These questions have been considered from a variety of different approaches and points of view, and this Congress is not an exception. Our principal sources of knowledge concerning the origin and evolution of avifaunas are: (1) Palaeontological data, a field that has seen a most welcome resurgence in the past 20 years. (2) Morphological data, of a variety of kinds, for extant taxa. (3) Molecular data, for which we now have samples not only of many African taxa but of Malagasy species as well. All of these data can be incorporated into phylogenetic, biogeographic, and historical analyses. Publications covering these topics appear regularly, and give confidence that these lines of investigations continue to develop successfully. The presentations in this symposium will draw upon all of these disparate data types. We hope that this symposium will help strengthen our understanding of the origin and evolution of the African and Malagasy avifaunas. Despite the absence (to our great disappointment) of Dr.H.James at IOC (and her paper) the presentations in this symposium will draw upon all of these disparate data types. We hope that this symposium will help to strengthen our knowledge of the origin and evolution of the African and Malagasy avifaunas.