A
passerine is any
bird of the
order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. A notable feature of passerines compared to other orders of
Aves is the arrangement of their toes, three pointing forward and one back, which facilitates . Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as
songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial
vertebrate orders, with over 5,000 identified
species. It has roughly twice as many species as the largest of the
mammal orders, the
Rodentia. It contains more than 110 families, the second-most of any order of
tetrapods (after
Squamata, the scaled reptiles).