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Kiwi once flew

Times of India, London
Scientists have for the first time ever solved a 150-year-old evolutionary mystery — the iconic kiwi actually once flew. Australia can no longer lay claim to the origins of the iconic New Zealand kiwi.
University of Adelaide scientists have now confirmed that kiwi's closest relative is not the emu as was previously thought. Instead, the diminutive kiwi is most closely related to the extinct Madagascan elephantbird — a 2-3 metre tall, 275 kg giant.
And surprisingly, the study concluded, both of these flightless birds once flew.
"We recently found fossils of small kiwi ancestors, which we suggested might have had the power of flight
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not too long ago," says Flinders University's Dr Trevor Worthy. “The genetic results back up this interpretation, and confirm that kiwis were flying when they arrived in New Zealand. It also explains why the kiwi remained small. By the time it arrived in New Zealand, the large herbivore role was already taken by the moa, forcing the kiwi to stay small, and become insectivorous and nocturnal".
The new study by the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), has solved the mystery about the origins of the giant flightless ratite birds, such as the emu and ostrich, which are found across the southern continents.
This group contains some of the world's largest birds - such as the extinct giant moa of New Zealand
and elephant birds of Madagascar.
The different species were long thought to have formed as the flightless birds were isolated by the separation of the southern continents over the last 130 million years.
However, ancient DNA extracted from bones of two elephant birds held by the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, has revealed a close genetic connection with the kiwi, despite the striking differences in geography, morphology and ecology between the two.
"This result was about as unexpected as you could get," says Kieren Mitchell from ACAD.
"New Zealand and Madagascar were only ever distantly physically joined via Antarctica and Australia, so this result shows the ratites must have dispersed around the world by flight".
The results correct previous work
by ACAD director Professor Alan Cooper conducted in the 1990s, which had shown the closest living relatives of the kiwi were the Australian emu and cassowary.
The team were able to use the elephant bird DNA to estimate when the ratite species had separated from each other.
“The evidence suggests flying ratite ancestors dispersed around the world right after the dinosaurs went extinct, before the mammals dramatically increased in size and became the dominant group," says Professor Cooper.
“We think the ratites exploited that narrow window of opportunity to become large herbivores, but once mammals also got large, about 50 million years ago, no other bird could try that idea again unless they were on a mammal free island - like the Dodo".