As of: February 16, 2024, 5:45 a.m
By: Sophie Kluß
Comments
Press
Split
Although a special characteristic had already been its undoing once, the Aldabra white-throated rail evolved in the same way after its first extinction.
The Aldabra white-throated rail (Dryolimnas cuvieri aldabranus) lived around 136,000 years ago on the Aldabra Atoll, which is part of the Seychelles archipelago.
It is the largest atoll in the Indian Ocean.
But due to its inability to fly, the ratite sank into the waves along with the island and became extinct from then on.
The new WhatsApp channel from Landtiere.de is here!
Animal tips and touching news can be found on our WhatsApp channel: Click here to go directly to
Tierverliebt
.
But miraculously, the sea level fell again around 118,000 years ago and the atoll emerged from the floods again - and the Aldabra white-throated rail also returned to its home island.
Aldabra has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982, as
RiffReporter
informs.
By the way: The largest bee in the world was also considered extinct until recently.
At first glance, the Aldabra white-throated rail (Dryolimnas cuvieri aldabranus), which is about the size of a chicken, appears inconspicuous.
And yet it is the only living, flightless bird in the Indian Ocean.
© blickwinkel/Imago
You can find even more exciting animal topics in the free partner newsletter from Landtiere.de, which you can subscribe to right here.
When it returned to the atoll, the white-throated rail was able to fly, according to
LiveScience
, an online science news magazine, but evolution had other plans for the insect eater.
Scientists in a study published in the
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
in 2019 suspect that the birds became heavier over time and thus lost their ability to fly - even though the former loss of their ability to fly had already been their undoing.
This bird species, which was thought to be dead, has been rediscovered - after 140 years.
Advantage in nature, even though the birds cannot fly
According to the researchers, their inability to fly seems to give them a clear advantage in their environment - unless the end of the world is imminent: "These birds lay their eggs on the ground so that they have strong legs with which they can walk around immediately after hatching. could make it easier for them to survive,” writes Megan Shersby, a naturalist and wildlife writer, at
LiveScience
.
My news
The final moments: Dogs go through three stages of dying before death
In Bavaria: One of the rarest mammals in the world has reappeared after 62 yearsread
Puppy “Piglet”: Pink, deaf, blind – and a role model for children’s reading
American marmot predicts: Spring is almost here - how does the weather forecast work?read
“It felt wrong to leave them alone in the cold” – Homeless man gives puppy readings at animal shelter
Pretty kitties: the 12 most beautiful cat breeds read
The
“Bird of the Week” podcast
sums up the astonishing nature of the supposedly inconspicuous Aldabra white-throated rail: “Evolution created this species not once, but twice.” And so does the study’s lead author, Julian Hume, paleontologist at Natural History Museum in London, was enthusiastic about the birds' development at the time of publication: "There is no other case that I can find in which the same species of bird has become flightless twice," said Hume.
“It wasn’t that two different species colonized and became flightless.
It was one and the same ancient bird.”
According to the “Bird of the Week”,
so-called parallel developments also exist,
for example, in manatees and sea turtles.
Among birds, however, the Aldabra white-throated rail is the first known case.