avian fossil have been found to be quite distinct. While there is not enough fossil material from Australornis to enable a phylogenetic study linking it with extant bird groups, it has been found to share certain derived characteristics with a number of modern bird taxonomic groups, namely Procellariiformes, Gaviiformes and Rallidae. Australornis lovei has similarities to two fossil avians from Antarctica - the similarly-sized Vegavis iaai (Noriega & Tambussi 1995) from the late Cretaceous (68 - 66 Ma) of Vega Island, Antarctica and Polarornis gregorii (Chatterjee 2002) from the Late Cretaceous López de Bertodano Formation of Seymour Island of Antarctica. Though Australornis was found near the fossils of Waimanu manneringi, the oldest fossil penguin, found in the same level of strata in Waipara and regarded to be of the same age, it lacks any morphological resemblances to penguins. In 2017 a phylogenetic study Agnolín and colleagues have found Australornis to be stem-anseriforms along with Polarornis, Neogaeornis and Vegavis in the family Vegaviidae. References A Paleocene birds Fossil taxa described in 2014 Extinct birds of New Zealand