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Name : Aldabra rail ( Dryolimnas cuvieri aldabranus )
Where it lives : Aldabra — a red coral atoll off the southeast coast of Africa
The flightless Aldabra rail went extinct over 130,000 years ago, but the species then reappeared via iterative evolution.
What it eats : Insects
Why it ’s awful : lie off the southeast coast of Africa , north of Madagascar , the coral limestone islands of the Aldabra atoll are home to a modest yet astonishing dame that hasevolvedto be flightless doubly .
The Aldabra rail is rather everyday at first glance . It ’s about the size of a chicken , with a flecked grayness back , a hoary red header and chest and a ashen throat . It is a subspecies of the clean - throated rail ( Dryolimnas cuvieri ) and is the only live flightless bird in the Indian Ocean , thanks to human - driven experimental extinction of birds like the dodo ( genus Raphus cucullatus ) .
A 2019 study published in theZoological Journal of the Linnean Societyexamined the fossil record of rails in Aldabra and found evidence of a flightless rail on the atoll from before it was drown beneath the waves 136,000 class ago . This result caused " an almost complete act over in the fauna , " lead authorJulian Hume , a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum , London , said in astatementat the time .
This deluge , which lasted until around 118,000 years ago , resulted in the extinction of the flightless rail subspecies , but then something remarkable happened .
When the atoll resurfaced , the white - throated runway — which is able to fly — recolonized the atoll and began its evolution to become flightless once again . The researcher found that leg dodo from rails go steady to around 100,000 year ago were heavy and more robust than those of clean - throated rails . According to the study author , this indicates the rails on the atoll were getting heavier and losing the ability to fly .
concern : See ' incredible ' photos of bird that is both male and distaff
Flightlessness appear to be a good trait in this surroundings . These birds lay their bollock on the ground , so feature strong ramification to draw around straight after incubate may help them survive . " As they develop , the very last matter to develop in the rails is the thoracic sinew and the extension muscle , " Hume said .
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In losing its power to fly once again , the Aldabra rail has essentially develop twice , rise from the dead through a process called " reiterative evolution " — where a species goes out , but then another follow along and evolves the same trait to become near - superposable to the one that was lose .
" There is no other case that I can determine of this happening , where you have a record of the same metal money of doll becoming flightless twice , " Hume read . " It was n’t as if it were two different species colonizing and becoming flightless . This was the very same transmissible bird . "
