Figure 1.

Dated phylogeny (time tree) of Mesozoic birds. The topology (majority-rule consensus tree) shown is inferred allowing fossil ancestors (r = 0) without partitioning the morphological characters. The node ages in the tree are the posterior medians and the shade of each circle represents the posterior probability of the corresponding clade. The colour of the branch represents the mean relative clock rate at that branch. The error bars on the top (in blue) at the internal nodes denote the 95% HPD intervals of age estimates. In comparison, the error bars below (if present, in cyan) denote the 95% HPD intervals when disallowing fossil ancestors (r = 1) under a single partition. Additionally, the error bars shown at the early avian diversifications (in green) are the 95% HPD intervals of age estimates when the characters are partitioned into six anatomical regions and disallowing fossil ancestors (r = 1). The two extant species (Anas and Gallus) were included in the analyses but not shown in the representation (as a sister clade of Vegavis).