All articles tagged with #flightless bird
Scientists have uncovered how the world's smallest flightless bird, the Inaccessible Island rail, arrived on its remote island from South America around 1.5 million years ago, likely via flight or floating debris, and highlighted the importance of habitat preservation to protect this unique species from invasive threats.
The flightless Aldabra rail, a species that went extinct over 130,000 years ago, reappeared through iterative evolution after the atoll it inhabited resurfaced. This process involved the white-throated rail recolonizing the atoll and evolving to become flightless once again, making it the only living flightless bird in the Indian Ocean. This remarkable case of iterative evolution demonstrates the species' ability to evolve twice, essentially rising from the dead and regaining its flightless traits.