Island birds confirm iterative evolution

diphtheria chickenA madagascar bird that flew to a remote island and evolved into a bird that doesn't fly has gone extinct after rising sea levels. But according to a new study, the same species returned to the island after falling sea levels and lost its craft again, the American Life Sciences Network reported.
between 240,000 and 136,000 years ago, diphtheria pheasants from Madagascar opened up their habitat on Aldabra Atoll. There was food on the island and no predators, which eliminated the need for birds to fly, eventually leading them to the path of ostrich and become unsoplanted. But 136,000 years ago, a catastrophic sea level rise inundated the island and wiped out the birds.
analysis of the island's fossils revealed that when the island dried up, another group of waything diphtheria chicks flew to the island and re-evolved into birds that could not fly, the researchers report in the Journal of Zoology of the Linnai Society. The study provides the most obvious example of a rare phenomenon known as iterative evolution, in which almost identical species evolved from the same ancestor at different times.
paper information: DOI:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlz018