title: Independent origins of New Zealand moas and kiwis.
abstract: Two groups of flightless ratite birds existed in New Zealand during the Pleistocene: the kiwis and the moas. The latter are now extinct but formerly included 11 species. We have enzymatically amplified and sequenced approximately 400 base pairs of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene from bones and soft tissue remains of four species of moas as well as eight other species of ratite birds and a tinamou. Contrary to expectation, the phylogenetic analysis shows that the kiwis are more closely related to Australian and African ratities than to the moas. Thus, New Zealand probably was colonized twice by ancestors of ratite birds.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley 94720.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mourer-Chauviré
authors.forename: G K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Haeseler
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pääbo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001717:Birds / Q000235:genetics*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009520:New Zealand; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides / Q000737:chemistry; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012335:RNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D009838:Oligodeoxyribonucleotides; D012335:RNA, Ribosomal