Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution

2014/05/23 by Kieren J. Mitchell, Bastien Llamas, Julien Soubrier +5 · 22 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Plant Diversity and Evolution

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1251981

openalex publication_date 2014/05/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

The evolution of the ratite birds has been widely attributed to vicariant speciation, driven by the Cretaceous breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The early isolation of Africa and Madagascar implies that the ostrich and extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornithidae) should be the oldest ratite lineages. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two elephant birds and performed phylogenetic analyses, which revealed that these birds are the closest relatives of the New Zealand kiwi and are distant from the basal ratite lineage of ostriches. This unexpected result strongly contradicts continental vicariance and instead supports flighted dispersal in all major ratite lineages. We suggest that convergence toward gigantism and flightlessness was facilitated by early Tertiary expansion into the diurnal herbivory niche after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Citations

• The Rise of Australian Marsupials: A Synopsis of Biostratigraphic, Phylogenetic, Palaeoecologic and Palaeobiogeographic Understanding
• Definitive fossil evidence for the extant avian radiation in the Cretaceous
• A Likelihood Approach to Estimating Phylogeny from Discrete Morphological Character Data
• MrBayes 3.2: Efficient Bayesian Phylogenetic Inference and Model Choice Across a Large Model Space
• Early Penguin Fossils, Plus Mitochondrial Genomes, Calibrate Avian Evolution

Cited by

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• Mitogenomes Uncover Extinct Penguin Taxa and Reveal Island Formation as a Key Driver of Speciation
• Phylogenomics and Morphology of Extinct Paleognaths Reveal the Origin and Evolution of the Ratites
• The Evolution and Fossil Record of Palaeognathous Birds (Neornithes: Palaeognathae)
• Whole-Genome Analyses Resolve the Phylogeny of Flightless Birds (Palaeognathae) in the Presence of an Empirical Anomaly Zone
• Ancient DNA Reveals Late Pleistocene Existence of Ostriches in Indian Sub-Continent
• Speciation, range contraction and extinction in the endemic New Zealand King Shag complex
• Mitochondrial Genomes from New Zealand’s Extinct Adzebills (Aves: Aptornithidae: Aptornis) Support a Sister-Taxon Relationship with the Afro-Madagascan Sarothruridae
• Retention of the flight-adapted avian finger-joint complex in the Ostrich helps identify when wings began evolving in dinosaurs
• Resolving the Avian Tree of Life from Top to Bottom: The Promise and Potential Boundaries of the Phylogenomic Era
• Osteology Supports a Stem-Galliform Affinity for the Giant Extinct Flightless Bird Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Sylviornithidae, Galloanseres)
• A complete and dynamic tree of birds
• A mitogenomic timetree for Darwin’s enigmatic South American mammal Macrauchenia patachonica
• The Biogeographic Importance of Buoyancy in Macroalgae: A Case Study of the Southern Bull‐Kelp Genus Durvillaea (Phaeophyceae), Including Descriptions of Two New Species1
• Aepyornis [wikipedia]
• Bird [wikipedia]
• Common ostrich [wikipedia]
• Emu [wikipedia]
• Kiwi (bird) [wikipedia]
• Palaeognathae [wikipedia]
• Proapteryx [wikipedia]
• Tinamou [wikipedia]