Explosive Evolution in Tertiary Birds and Mammals

@article{Feduccia1995ExplosiveEI,
  title={Explosive Evolution in Tertiary Birds and Mammals},
  author={Alan Feduccia},
  journal={Science},
  year={1995},
  volume={267},
  pages={637 - 638}
}
The traditional view of avian evolution over the past century is that of sluggish gradualism, in which many living orders of birds are thought to have originated from the mid-Cretaceous or so (1), and, passing unblemished past the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) boundary, slowly diversified into the present avian morphological landscape. Thomas Huxley in 1867, for example, viewed the living ratites, such as ostriches and their allies, as "waifs and strays" of the primeval radiation. As a consequence… 
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