Hawaiian honeyeaters' long-lost relatives found
Thursday, December 11, 2008 - 13:28
in Biology & Nature
Despite appearances, Hawaii's five species of recently extinct songbirds known as honeyeaters bore no close relationship at all to the honeyeaters found in Australia and New Guinea, according to a genetic analysis reported online on December 11th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Rather, similarities in the way the two groups of birds act and look - including their long bills and brush-tipped tongues specially adapted for gathering nectar - arose independently in the two geographical regions.
Read the whole article on Physorg
More from Physorg
Related
- Hawaiian honeyeaters' long-lost relatives foundThu, 11 Dec 2008, 13:31:36 EST
- Smithsonian scientists rearrange Hawaii's bird family treeThu, 11 Dec 2008, 13:31:17 EST
- Introduced Japanese white-eyes pose major threat to Hawaii's native and endangered birdsThu, 17 Sep 2009, 12:53:00 EDT
- Count your chickens (and robins and pigeons ...), urge researchers working to protect birdsTue, 1 Jun 2010, 17:52:06 EDT
- For macaques, male bonding is a political moveThu, 18 Nov 2010, 12:43:58 EST