Microcarbo has been recognized as a valid genus by the IOC's World Bird List[1] on the basis of work by Siegel-Causey (1988), Kennedy et al. (2000), and Christidis and Boles (2008).
As suggested by the name, this genus contains the smallest of the world's cormorants. It is also the most basal, having diverged from the rest of the family between 12.8 to 15.4 million years ago.[2]
Christidis, L., and W. E. Boles. 2008. Systematics and taxonomy of Australian birds. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia.
Kennedy, M., R. D. Gray, and H. G. Spencer. 2000. The phylogenetic relationships of the shags and cormorants: can sequence data resolve a disagreement between behavior and morphology? Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 17: 345–359.
Siegel-Causey, D. 1988. Phylogeny of the Phalacrocoracidae. Condor 90: 885–905. Available at [1] (Accessed 13 May 2010).