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Science Article Solves Big Bird Mystery
South Australian Museum Senior Researcher Dr Mike Lee, and Research Associate Trevor
Worthy, are part of a team of researchers who have rewritten the evolutionary history of
giant birds called ratites, and solved the mystery of how these flightless birds migrated
across the globe after the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
Until now, the closest relatives of the New
Zealand Kiwi were thought to be the
Australian emu and cassowary. However, a
paper published today in the prestigious
journal Science reveals that the Kiwi's closest
cousin is a giant extinct bird from much further
away: Madagascar! The research was led by
Mr Kieren Mitchell and Professor Alan Cooper
from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at
the University of Adelaide.
Adult kiwi (Apteryx) with the egg of its close – and much larger –
cousin, the elephant bird (Aepyornis). Image: Kyle Davis and
Paul Scofield, Canterbury Museum.
The extinct Madagascan elephant bird was
around three metres tall and weighed up to
300 kilograms. They are among the most impressive and enigmatic of birds: the South
Australian Museum has real bones of these creatures, that have been in the collection for at
least a century. They are kept in the same drawer as bones of another famous extinct
flightless bird, the dodo, from Mauritius.
Dr Lee says “The distribution of two bizarre, flightless relatives on islands on opposite sides
of the world, which have never been directly connected, implies that they must have
evolved from ancestors capable of long-distance flight.
“The ancestors of kiwis, elephant birds, emus, ostriches all flew around the world, and then
became wingless giants separately on each continent, confounding attempts to understand
how they got around.”
Prof. Cooper adds “It’s finally great to set the record straight, as we New Zealanders were
shocked and dismayed to find that our national bird appeared to be an Australian immigrant.
I can only apologise it has taken so long.”
The team sequenced the complete
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.
Dr Lee says the publication of the research in
Science is a major coup for the Museum. “The
research team included ornithologists,
Dr Mike Lee with Madagascan elephant bird bones, held at the
palaeontologists, molecular biologists and
South Australian Museum.
bioinformaticians, and their complementary
skills were vital to solve this avian mystery. Museum scientists have unique expertise
required to answer some of the biggest questions in science.”
South Australian Museum Publicist Alex Parry:
P: 08 8207 7385 M: 0422 722 093 E: [email protected]
With its head towering 3 metres in the air, an elephant bird
(Aepyornis maximus) wanders through the spiny forest of ancient
Madagascar. Image: Brian Choo.