I agree John, go back far enough and ancestral Nightjars may have had
smaller eyes and been diurnal, and parrots bills may not have been as
specialized and dissimilar to passerines as they are now.
Cheers Jeff.
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of John Leonard
Sent: Saturday, 28 June 2008 8:51 AM
To: Birding-aus
Subject: new bird phylogeny
I think this may just be careless writing, DNA can tell you about
relationships and ancestry, but it can't tell you whether a bird is
nocturnal or not without seeing the phenotype!
John Leonard
2008/6/27 Andrew Taylor <>:
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 05:21:39PM +1000, John Leonard wrote:
>> The business about the Tinamous is puzzling, but the
>> hummingbird/nightjar link could be explained by having their common
>> ancestor a diurnal bird, nightjars then later becoming nocturnal as
>> the hummingbirds became specialised for nectar feeding.
>
> The paper (abstract) definitely says a nocturnal ancestor but one of
> the authors posting on USENET (linked below) says probably crepuscular.
>
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c013b4b1e29
44489
>
> Interestingly this 2006 paper also says a nocturnal ancestor for
> hummingbirds/swifts - not sure how independent their data is:
>
http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/abteilung/terrzool/ornitho
logie/neoaves.pdf
>
> Andrew
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--
John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net
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