Thinocoridae (Charadrii- or Ciconii-formes)

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      I was looking in NCBI's Entrez Taxonomy database, and they have Family Thinocoridae in Order Ciconiiformes (not in Charadriiformes).  This seemed highly odd to me, so I checked out their links, and this placement seems to come from ITIS.  So my question now is why did ITIS do this?  I'm having trouble accessing ITIS, but I don't think I've ever seen this done (except for those who follow Sibley in throwing all of the charadriiforms into an enormous Ciconiiformes).

      NCBI also includes Pteroclidae in Ciconiiformes, and that family should probably be in Columbiformes (or as a full order unto itself).  I also looked at the Tree of Life site, where I found they have Pelecanidae in Ciconiiformes (not in the nominal Pelecaniformes), and that is just plain wrong no matter how you slice it.  Yikes!!!
     ---Ken Kinman
P.S.  On the placement of the problematic Order Phaethontiformes (tropicbirds), I finally decided that they are closer to Caprimulgiformes (the paraphyletic mother taxon to the apodiforms).  Hopefully the morphology of the brain of tropicbirds will shed more light on their closest relatives (we shall see).