The Tasman crazy bird has never been extinct

Camouflage and using nicknames seemingly only in intelligence films. But no, recently scientists and detectives have discovered the extinct Tasmanian crazy bird turned out to exist - under a different name, with a different appearance.

Tasman's crazy bird has been through a difficult time since humans know that it is easy to catch and has delicious meat.

Residing on small islands around the edge of the Australian and New Zealand archipelagos, the bird faced the threat of extinction for the first time in 1200 AD, when the Polynesians lived on the island. Norfolk began hunting them.

But the Tasman crazy bird managed to become a small population on Lord Howe island for the next 500 years.

But then disaster came again, when European sailors got hungry - they continued to destroy the last crazy birds on Earth, turning it into extinction. Until today .

Who is the current crazy bird?

Researchers have long suspected that the Tasman crazy bird is extinct and the crazy bird currently living in the north of the Tasman Sea is closely related. The males and females of this species have the same body shape as the male, which is in the extinct crazy bird and has very characteristic long wings.

But only when the scientific group of naturalists, paleontologists, and geneticists shook hands would the suspicion be officially examined.

The researchers compared bone and DNA between the current crazy bird and the extinct mad bird.

(Photo: Paul Nicklen / NGS )

In terms of body composition, fossil bones are surprisingly similar to current mad bird bones. More importantly, the DNA of the two 'species' is exactly the same.

Research shows that Tasmanian crazy birds are not as extinct as people think.

In fact, this bird has been given a new name: 'fake' crazy bird.

According to Tammy Steeves, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, this species has one more name because 'for centuries biologists and paleontologists refused to shake hands when studying birds. crazy.'

Fossil experts unknowingly compared the fossil of the Tasman crazy bird with the current mad bird bone. At that time, because they did not know that females were always a bit larger than the male, the paleontologists thought they were comparing the bones of two different species.

Rare joy

Before this study, Steeves thought that the current crazy bird was a brother on the evolution of the Tasman crazy bird.

'Can you imagine how surprised I was when I found out that they were actually identical. It is a rare joy to find such clear results. '

'In the past, there have been many cases of scientific circles' rediscovering' extinct birds through careful research in the field. But this is not the case, ' Steeve said,

'We were the first to' rediscover 'a bird only through laboratory research.'

The results of the study have been published in detail in Biology Letters on August 8.