Flamingo and Grebe May Be Sister Species

July 12 -- It's not often that scientists arrive at well-documented findings that are so contrary to common sense that they sit on them instead of publishing them because they figure no one's going to believe them anyway.

But that's sort of what happened to two independent research teams at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wisconsin. Using very different approaches, the two teams studied the genetic nature of a wide range of aquatic birds, and some of the results were downright "astonishing," says evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State's Eberly College of Science, leader of one of the teams.

For example, the elegant flamingo, with its stork-like legs, long neck and brilliant colors, turns out to have a really strange bedfellow in its family tree. The flamingo's closest relative, according to the researchers, is not another long-legged shore bird. It's a grebe.

The grebe is a duck-like bird with short legs designed for diving, and it doesn't look at all like a flamingo. Yet according to the researchers, the flamingo is more closely related to the grebe than it is to any other bird.

Turning Ornithology on its Head

If confirmed by further research, the findings indicate that the way we have grouped birds into distinct families, based generally on morphological traits like body structure and other similar physical characteristics, is wrong.

In other words, just because it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's not necessarily a duck.

The research also suggests that evolution, especially among aquatic birds, has moved along at a much faster pace than had been thought, with many species developing similar characteristics — like webbed feet — independently, and at different times.

Of course, not everyone's convinced. Hedges himself admits the response among ornithologists has been one of "disbelief." That was expected, and it's one of the reasons the researchers waited several years to publish their findings, which finally appeared in the July 7 issue of England's Journal of the Royal Society.