An island half the sizing of Manhattan in the south Atlantic Ocean is so stray , it ’s call Inaccessible Island . On that island , and only on that island , live intimately 6,000 runty featherballs call off Inaccessible Island rail . But they ca n’t fly , and the island is only a few million twelvemonth old . How did the bird get there ?
A new analysis may have work out the mystery . The chick ’s DNA reveals that it develop relatively latterly from some visitant to the island , and lost its ability to fly from the forces of natural option .
“ It ’s quite spectacular that the Word of God ’s smallest living flightless birds terminate up in one of the most remote places ever , ” written report author Martin Stervander , University of Oregon postdoctoral researcher , tell Gizmodo . “ It seems the birds arrived on the island , and since they faced little threat from predators , there was n’t much stage of flying . ”
When scientists first described the razz in the 1920s , they knew immediately that they were wait at something strange . Inaccessible Island is 3,500 klick ( 2,175 mi ) from South America and 2,800 kilometre ( 1,740 miles ) from southerly Africa . The hiss does n’t occupy either of two nearby islands turn up less than 20 miles away . They advise , before the possibility of plate architectonics existed , that the bird somehow walked to the island over some kind of deep-set land span . They placed it in its own genus , Atlantisia . More recent research has project that the razzing develop from rails in Africa .
The scientists behind the young newspaper have analytical instrument other than hiss shapes and geography at their disposal . They get a male Inaccessible Island rail in September 2011 , sample its blood , sequenced its desoxyribonucleic acid , and compared the issue to data on other rails . They inferred that the rail ’s ancestor was a South American bird that arrived on the island more or less 1.5 million years ago , and that it ’s more probable a member of the Laterallus genus , which let in present - day birds like the dot - fly crake , the Galapagos crake , and the standardized - sounding black railing , grant tothe paperpublished in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution .
It makes sense . Rails are notorious for fly wherever and settling in , with 53 subsist or recently extinct species appear only on island , and 32 species lose some or all of their flight power as a result . A population of the Inaccessible Island rail ’s ascendant likely flew east into the Atlantic and ended up on the island — which was a sweet enough lance that they did n’t need to fly anymore .
“ When the rail arrived at Inaccessible Island , they had all their food from take the air around and there was nothing to escape from , there ’s not much penury for flying , ” said Stervander . The bird ’s only threats on Inaccessible Island are another bird coinage that sometimes eats bollock , and perhaps a few seabirds .
It ’s unclear why the rail did n’t head over to the other two island — perhaps a population test and fail .
Stervander indicate out that there ’s more research to be done . The dataset on the rail was incomplete , so perhaps more data will disclose that the bird really does belong to a separate genus .
And though the bird is living the good living , it ’s still considered a vulnerable specie . Flightless fowl population can easy collapse if man bring encroaching specie with them , like cats or dirty dog .
This paper solves perhaps the cutest enigma in the southern Atlantic Ocean . But if you be after on visiting the island ( which is not an easy exploit ) ensure you ’re not doing anything to harm the birds .
[ Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution ]
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