The World's Songbirds Originated in Australia?!

I was listening to two podcasts a few days back, one called
The distinctive songbirds of Australia
where I learned that -
"Recent research has confirmed that the world's songbirds originated in Australia.
And of all the animals, it seems their sense of beauty is the one that most closely aligns with ours."

And the other was a podcast called -
FUTURE FOSSILS #0022 – SIMON YUGLER (TRAVEL ALCHEMY & INITIATION)
which I wrote a post about recently -

SIMON YUGLER (TRAVEL ALCHEMY &

INITIATION)
Michael Garfield is the guy who hosts the 'Future Fossils' podcast and I used Michael Garfield's album cover at the top of this post, as the shape of the bird on the cover reminded me of the butcher bird that hangs around my windows singing to me and other birds.
Butcher Birds?

The butcher bird that often sits outside
 my computer room singing (to me?)

Michael is from Austin, Texas, but he was out here in Australia (more or less in my backyard) when he recorded that podcast with Simon.
And on the subject of fossils, I also saw these news stories about fossils -
Discovery of 300,000 - year-old fossils rewrites origins of Homo sapiens
"The discovery of ancient remains of Stone Age humans in Morocco has pushed back the date of the origin of our species by 100,000 years."
And 
Baby bird discovered in 99-million-year-old amber with feathers, colour intact

Track #11 on Michael's album is called 'Extinct'. 
Fears 'once in a century' chance to preserve bird habitat could be lost to residential development

I hope Australia never loses its wonderful birdsong.

I wrote about meeting this cheeky little butcher bird pictured above in the post linked below - 
Another Orb at the Byron Bay Writers Festival?

I never knew that songbirds originated in Australia at the time I wrote that post, so the artwork at the festival of the little butcher bird setting off in the boat seems more poignant now when I read that post again.
And if you listen to the bird podcast linked above in the post and wondered where you could see a clip of Alex the smart parrot, he is in the You Tube below.