自從上世紀(jì)80年代以來，夏威夷蜜雀（如上圖）便一直被認(rèn)為派生于澳大利亞或南太平洋的一種類似鳥類,。它們?cè)谕庥^,、行為以及生活方式上都非常相似,。即便它們的叫聲都很像。然而對(duì)博物館標(biāo)本進(jìn)行的DNA分析卻顯示,，生活在夏威夷島上的5種蜜雀與生活在北半球溫帶地區(qū)的蠟翅鳥,，以及生活在中美洲和南美洲的霸鹟在親緣關(guān)系上更為接近。
據(jù)美國(guó)《科學(xué)》雜志在線新聞報(bào)道,，它們的祖先很可能在1500萬年前從中南美洲來到夏威夷,，這一時(shí)間比生活在夏威夷的其他鳥類早了數(shù)百萬年的時(shí)間。研究人員在《當(dāng)代生物學(xué)》網(wǎng)絡(luò)版上報(bào)告了這一發(fā)現(xiàn),。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
Current Biology,，Volume 18, Issue 24, 1927-1931，Robert C. Fleischer,，Storrs L. Olson
Convergent Evolution of Hawaiian and Australo-Pacific Honeyeaters from Distant Songbird Ancestors
Robert C. Fleischer1,2,,,Helen F. James2andStorrs L. Olson2
1 Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20008, USA
2 Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA
The Hawaiian honeyeaters, five endemic species of recently extinct, nectar-feeding songbirds in the genera Moho and Chaetoptila, looked and acted like Australasian honeyeaters (Meliphagidae), and no taxonomist since their discovery on James Cook's third voyage has classified them as anything else [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. We obtained DNA sequences from museum specimens of Moho and Chaetoptila collected in Hawaii 115158 years ago. Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences supports monophyly of the two Hawaiian genera but, surprisingly, reveals that neither taxon is a meliphagid honeyeater, nor even in the same part of the songbird radiation as meliphagids. Instead, the Hawaiian species are divergent members of a passeridan group that includes deceptively dissimilar families of songbirds (Holarctic waxwings, neotropical silky flycatchers, and palm chats). Here we designate them as a new family, the Mohoidae. A nuclear-DNA rate calibration [9] suggests that mohoids diverged from their closest living ancestor 1417 mya, coincident with the estimated earliest arrival in Hawaii of a bird-pollinated plant lineage [10]. Convergent evolution, the evolution of similar traits in distantly related taxa because of common selective pressures, is illustrated well by nectar-feeding birds [11], but the morphological, behavioral, and ecological similarity of the mohoids to the Australasian honeyeaters makes them a particularly striking example of the phenomenon.
