Extinct bird resurrected by evolution.

A species of Rail that became extinct 136,000 years ago has been “resurrected” through a rare phenomenon called iterative evolution.
The flightless Aldabra Rail was wiped out when an inundation event flooded the Aldabra Atoll on which it had existed.

“ The Aldabra rail is a subspecies of the white-throated rail (Dryolimnas cuvieri), which is indigenous to islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean. The birds are “persistent colonizers,” according to the University of Portsmouth; they are known to build up on large land bodies and subsequently depart en masse, possibly triggered by overcrowding and a lack of food.”

“At some point in the distant past, rails landed on Aldabra. There were no predators on the atoll, rendering the birds’ ability to fly unnecessary—so they lost it. And in the wake of the inundation event, the process happened again: Rails arrived on Aldabra and, faced with a lack of predation, once again lost their flight.

“In 20,000 years or less, the rails were evolving flightlessness again,” Hume tells Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum. “Evolution can be incredibly quick if the conditions are right.”“

I can’t understand why people invent creation stories when the actual natural world is so fascinating.

In the meantime, “Darwin’s Finches” on the Galápagos Islands are interbreeding/hybridising and so now blurring the distinction between traditional species.

“... despite having shown convincingly that the finches' family history is decidedly blurry, [researcher] actually argue for the addition of three new species to the existing tally of 15.”

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2XIqiL5