‘ Extinct’ flightless bird comes back to life

A f l i g h t l e s s b i r d t h a t became extinct when its home island was flooded by the sea “came back to life” when a similar species evolved in the same location, scientists have discovered.

Researchers f rom t he University of Portsmouth and t he Natural Histo - r y Museum found that a species of rail successfully colonised an isolated atoll called Aldabra in the Indian Ocean on two occasions separated by tens of thousands of years. And on both occasions, the whitethroated rail - indigenous to Madagascar - evolved completely independently to become flightless.

Dr Julian Hume, avian paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, said: “These unique fossils provide irrefutable evidence that a member of the rail family colonised the atoll and became flightless independently.”