Independent origins of New Zealand moas and kiwis.
- 15 September 1992
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 89 (18) , 8741-8744
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.89.18.8741
Abstract
Two groups of flightless ratite birds existed in New Zealand during the Pleistocene: the kiwis and the moas. The latter are now extinct but formerly included 11 species. We have enzymatically amplified and sequenced approximately 400 base pairs of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene from bones and soft tissue remains of four species of moas as well as eight other species of ratite birds and a tinamou. Contrary to expectation, the phylogenetic analysis shows that the kiwis are more closely related to Australian and African ratities than to the moas. Thus, New Zealand probably was colonized twice by ancestors of ratite birds.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Sequence and gene organization of the chicken mitochondrial genomeJournal of Molecular Biology, 1990
- Ancient bone DNA amplifiedNature, 1989
- Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in animals: amplification and sequencing with conserved primers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1989
- DNA phylogeny of the extinct marsupial wolfNature, 1989
- Simultaneous editing of multiple nucleic acid and protein sequences with ESEEBioinformatics, 1989
- Ancient DNA: extraction, characterization, molecular cloning, and enzymatic amplification.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1989
- Paleognathous Carinate Birds from the Early Tertiary of North AmericaScience, 1981
- Sequence and organization of the human mitochondrial genomeNature, 1981
- Do the chromosomes of the kiwi provide evidence for a monophyletic origin of the ratites?Nature, 1980
- Evolution of flightless land birds on southern continents: Transferrin comparison shows monophyletic origin of ratitesJournal of Molecular Evolution, 1976