Novaeratitae

genus of birds

family of birds (subfossil)

The Casuariiformes is an order of large flightless birds that has four surviving members: the three species of cassowary, and the only remaining species of emu. They are divided into either a single family, Casuariidae, or occasionally two, with the emu splitting off into its own family, Dromaiidae. The IOC World Bird List and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds of the World both do not recognize Dromaiidae, placing the emu in the family Casuariidae.

Novaeratitae is a clade that was originally defined to contain the recent common ancestors of the orders Casuariiformes (emus and cassowaries) and Apterygiformes (kiwi). This clade was named by Yuri et al. (2013) and phylogenetically defined in the PhyloCode by Sangster et al. (2022) as "the least inclusive crown clade containing Apteryx australis and Casuarius casuarius". Recently it has been determined that the elephant birds of the extinct order Aepyornithiformes were the closest relatives of the kiwis, and therefore are part of this group. The implication is that ratites had lost flight in