Probert Encyclopaedia: Nature (Peb-Pel)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
The flowers are usually borne in few-flowered umbels, the peduncles being axillary.
Pelecanidae is the Pelican family of birds of the order Natatores.
The pelican is any of a family (Pelecanidae) of large, heavy water birds remarkable for the pouch beneath the bill which is used as a fishing net and temporary store for catches of fish.
Jendy Yon - colloquium(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
Pelecanidae and Phalacrocoracidae were the only two families that met all four criteria.
Pelecanidae was rejected because the species in Japan is accidental, they have a diet of only small fish which they swallow immediately, and are sensitive to human disturbance.
Out of the seven possibilities, Phalacrocoracidae was found to be the only suitable fisher-bird, based on the above criteria, because they have a diet mainly of fish which are large enough to be of use to humans.
Pelecaniformes - EvoWiki(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
Pelecaniformes represents one of the most spectacular orders of living birds, bracketing a vast array of aquatic piscivorous forms united by the shared presence of a totipalmate foot and a distensible gular pouch between the mandibular rami (albeit reduced in the tropicbirds).
The molecular data is entirely inconsistent with over a century of morphological analysis (cladistic and otherwise) conclusively demonstrating that Pelecaniformes is holophyletic and thus must be regarded with great skepticism, as Sibley and Ahlquist (1990) themselves noted.
Saiff (1978) and Sibley and Ahlquist (1990) argued that Balaeniceps rex was the closet relative of the Pelecanidae.
