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ID: #36528
Madagascar bird
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A bird from Madagascar flew to a remote island and evolved to become flightless only to be exterminated by rising seas. But, according to a new study, the same species recolonized the island after sea levels and again lost the ability to fly, LiveScience reports. Between 136,000 and 240,000 years ago, white-throated rails from Madagascar colonized an island in the Aldabra atoll. The island's food and lack of predators eliminated the birds' need for flight, eventually causing them to go the way of the ostrich and become flightless. But 136,000 years ago, the birds' gravy train was interrupted by a catastrophic flood that inundated the island and the birds out. A new analysis of fossils found on the island shows that after the island dried out, another wayward flock of white-throated rails arrived, and again evolved to become flightless, the study authors report in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The study provides one of the clearest examples of a rare phenomenon called iterative evolution, in which nearly species evolve from the same ancestor at different times.
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