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Subject: Songbirds Originated in Australia Author: Blobrana [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 17:19:27 07/20/04 Tue Smashing accepted theory that the birds spread south from Europe and North America, the DNA study finds just the opposite. Research led by Keith Barker from the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minnesota looked at the passerines, or perching birds, which make up half the world's birds. Three-quarters of passerines are songbirds. The scientists conducted the largest ever analysis of passerine DNA to trace the origins of perching birds back to the super-continent Gondwanaland. The study showed passerines originated in Western Gondwanaland, which split into Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica, with the sub-species of songbirds evolving in what is now Australia. Assistant director of the Australian Museum in Sydney, Associate Professor Les Christidis, said the study built on research by Australian authors, including himself, in the late 1980s. He said the suggestion that songbirds originated in Australia was considered "ludicrous" when it was first published. "When we first suggested this ... we got laughed at by the Americans," he said. "Australia doesn't have that many birds relative to the rest of the world, so how could it be the centre of everything? It turns out that lowly Australia really is the centre. Australia can lay claim to the songbirds without a shadow of a doubt." He said passerine birds found along the east coast of Australia, such as lyre birds, bower birds, tree creepers and honey eaters were living examples of tens of millions of years of evolution. Australian ornithologist Wayne Longmore from Museum Victoria said the hypothesis challenged 200 years of thinking. "Up until the last four or five years it's always been thought that the passerine birds originated in the northern hemisphere and spread south and that's been the gospel for the last 200 years," he said. The oldest passerine fossil was also found in Australia, dating back to the early Eocene period about 55 million years ago. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]