Palaeognathae, or
paleognaths, is one of the two living
clades of
birds – the other being
Neognathae. Together, these two clades form the
clade Neornithes. Palaeognathae contains five
extant branches of flightless lineages (plus two extinct
clades), termed ratites, and one flying lineage, the
Neotropic tinamous. There are 47 species of tinamous, 5 of
kiwis (
Apteryx), 3 of
cassowaries (
Casuarius), 1 of
emus (
Dromaius) (another became extinct in historic times), 2 of
rheas and 2 of
ostrich. Recent research has indicated that paleognaths are
monophyletic but the traditional taxonomic split between flightless and flighted forms is incorrect; tinamous are within the
ratite radiation, meaning flightlessness arose independently multiple times via
parallel evolution.