from the Robin-eggs-for-breakfast-anyone? dept.
A Texas A&M University team has discovered three never before documented bird species, and there could well be more, the team's leader said.
Dr. Gary Voelker, professor and curator of birds in the department of wildlife and fisheries sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, headed the recent discovery of a trio of similar African birds living in close proximity, but that are different species which share no common genes.
Voelker was lead author on an article published recently in the scientific journal Systematics and Biodiversity discussing that discovery.
"The discovery of these three new species is a good example of the amount of potentially hidden diversity living in Afrotropical forests," Voelker said. "Our evidence runs directly counter to the belief of earlier research that said Afrotropical forests are static places where little evolutionary diversification has occurred.
The Earth still has more secrets it's hiding up its sleeve.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @08:00AM
Their struggling feels so good as they suffocate up my ass.
(Score: 2) by gringer on Saturday November 12 2016, @08:52AM
similar African birds living in close proximity, but that are different species which share no common genes.
Of course they have common genes. I can state with very high likelihood that they'll at least have all of their mitochondrial genes in common. The exact base sequence (or protein sequence) of the genes might be different, but the genes will have the same function.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @08:59AM
I share 99% of the same genes as my food, but that doesn't stop me from devouring it. Eating is incestuous! Oh baby, so delicious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 12 2016, @04:04PM
Not quite a discovery in the sense that no ornithologist had ever seen these birds before, from that press release it seems that someone has decided based on molecular biology that these similar-looking known birds should be assigned different species names. Happens all the time nowadays in all "kingdoms" of nature, and probably not always for the good of our understanding. Some thirty years ago it was the advent of routine electron microscopy that made botanists reassign plants families based on the surface structure of their seeds - today that is probably in the same regard as 1900th century phrenology.