[Taxacom] Another blow to vicariance in ratite evolution

[John Grehan]

Really Ken?

"In 1992 Cooper raised some doubts about the continent-riding idea when he
and his colleagues extracted ancient DNA from bones of New Zealand?s hefty
flightless moa, now extinct. As fellow travelers, moas and kiwis should
have been close relatives. But they weren?t." This is as about stupid as
one can get in biogeography. There is no biogeographic imperative for moas
and kiwis to be sister taxa just because their origin in NZ was
geologically mediated.

First: Kiwis were more closely related to Australia?s cassowaries and emus.
?Hugely embarrassing,? Cooper says, for the national bird of New Zealand.
No it is not.

"Now he and his colleagues have extracted DNA from the two genera of
elephant birds and found that they were even more closely related to kiwis
than the Australian birds were. Their homes weren't near each other as
continent fragments, so mere drifting doesn't explain the close
relationship. Distant ancestors must still have done some flying...".
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I know I am going to get some knocks for using that
adjective, but its hard to figure out what else. There are other taxa with
a Madagascar (and or S Africa) - New Zealand relationships and they are
perfectly concordant with geologically mediated origins. Perhaps instead of
stupid I should just say ignorant.

John Grehan


On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Ken Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi All,       Looks like elephant birds are closely related to kiwis (not
> to ostriches).  This means even more dispersal and less vicariance than
> once thought in ratite evolution.  Here's one science news report on this
> newest finding:
>
> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/flightless-birds%E2%80%99-history-upset-ancient-dna?mode=magazine&context8254
>                                     ------------------------Ken
>
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