Meet the bird that refuses to die:
“These unique fossils provide irrefutable evidence that a member of the rail family colonised the atoll, most likely from Madagascar, and became flightless independently on each occasion,” Dr. Hume said. “Fossil evidence presented here is unique for rails, and epitomises the ability of these birds to successfully colonise isolated islands and evolve flightlessness on multiple occasions.”
“There is no other case that I can find of this happening where you have a record of the same species of bird becoming flightless twice,” Dr. Hume explained. “It wasn’t as if it were two different species colonising and becoming flightless. This was the very same ancestral bird.” This ease of evolving flightlessness is because developing and maintaining large wing muscles demands energy that can be used for other purposes, such as reproduction.
“Surprisingly, Aldabra rails can survive alongside rats, even killing them, but they cannot exist with feral cats. The rails have disappeared from the Aldabra islands where cats are feral,” Dr. Hume said in email.
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