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Kiwi Taxonomy (1 Viewer)

martinf

Well-known member
Some authorities class Apteryx rowi as a full species. I was just wondering from which species it had been split and whether anyone could cite the reference? Haven't currently got access to Hanzab, which I imagine might hold the answer!!
 
Little Spotted Kiwi

Ramstad, Colbourne, Robertson, Allendorf & Daugherty 2013. Genetic consequences of a century of protection: serial founder events and survival of the little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii). Proc R Soc B 280(1762). [abstract]
 
Shepherd LD, Worthy TH, Tennyson AJD, Scofield RP, Ramstad KM, et al. (2012) Ancient DNA Analyses Reveal Contrasting Phylogeographic Patterns amongst Kiwi (Apteryx spp.) and a Recently Extinct Lineage of Spotted Kiwi. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42384. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042384

PDF here
 
Kiwi would look delicious for cavemen (if those "coexisted" with kiwi) and their ancestors (?). Like dodo dronte from Mauritius. Maybe it was split from eaten species.

Here is paper on completely different subject - convergention in evolution of bills. Because offtops and digressions are always more interesting then main theme.
Comparison of prey detecting mechanism in two different super-orders of birds: the Paleognathae (kiwi Apteryx ssp.) and the Neognathae (more precisely here Scolopacidae, like woodcock Scolopax ssp. or snipe Gallinago ssp.). I was always sure, that Scolopacidae use smell to detect worms, but they don't.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2375824/
A new prey-detection mechanism for kiwi (Apteryx spp.) suggests convergent evolution between paleognathous and neognathous birds
J Anat. 2007 October; 211(4): 493–502.
(...) unusual feature, combined with the ‘snuffling’ sound (...)
 
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Richard Klim wrote:

The Guardian, 19 Dec 2013: Kiwi bird could have Australian roots, says expert after fossil discovery.

Worthy, Tennyson, Salisbury, Hand & Scofield. A fossil kiwi (Apterygiformes) from the Early Miocene St Bathans Fauna, New Zealand. 8th Internat SAPE Meeting, 11-16 Jun 2012, Vienna. [abstracts] (p30)

This is Proapteryx micromeros;

The description of Apteryx rowi is in lan J. D. Tennyson, Ricardo L. Palma, Hugh A. Robertson, Trevor H. Worthy & B. J. Gill, 2003: A New Species of Kiwi (Aves, Apterygiformes) from Okarito, New Zealand: Records of the Auckland Museum 40: 55-64

I have both papers, if you want a copy mail me at [email protected]

Have fun,

Fred Ruhe
 
T. H. Worthy, J. P. Worthy, A. J. D. Tennyson, S. W. Salisbury, S. J. Hand & R. P. Scofield, 2013. Miocene fossils show that kiwi (Apteryx, Apterygidae) are probably not phyletic dwarves. Paleornithological Research, pp. 63-80.

PDF
 
What was distance between New Zealand and Australia those times ? The same as today ?
http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Cont...ns-and-Interactives/Tectonic-plates-animation
Edited later:
Approx. the same, because the oldest kiwi fossil is only about 1 million years old ? But their ancestors
arrived in New Zealand about 60 million years ago. According to the above animation New Zealand and Australia were still connected those times.
http://kiwisforkiwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/KF-Resource-4_How-Kiwi-Came-to-NZ.pdf
But you are talking about further, more specific steps of kiwi evolution.
 
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So that was not about miocene.
from which species it had been split
Probably brown kiwi Apteryx australis was split in 3 species - the North Island brown kiwi Apteryx mantelli, the Okarito brown kiwi (Rowi) Apteryx rowi and southern brown kiwi (Tokoeka) Apteryx australis. But there are two other species of kiwi (!).
What probably means, that kiwi and moa evolved independetly - New Zealand most likely was colonized twice by ancestors of ratite birds.
http://www.pnas.org/content/89/18/8741.full.pdf‎
Independent origins of New Zealand moas and kiwis
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 89, pp. 8741-8744, September 1992
The question is - flying, by foot or swimming.
Why kiwi are so downy ? Does it make the more difficult to detect using echolocation or radar or this is sort of fur in cold climate or helps them to approach hidden in ground worms noiselessly ?
 
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Actually kiwi may be so downy because it's feather lost flight function, so it doesn't need to be rigid. This is why kiwi could afford to look like chick. On the other hand this can be considered as kind of convergention between birds and mammals !
 
Little Spotted Kiwi

Ramstad, Colbourne, Robertson, Allendorf & Daugherty 2013. Genetic consequences of a century of protection: serial founder events and survival of the little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii). Proc R Soc B 280(1762). [abstract]
Digby, Bell & Teal (in press). Vocal individuality of Little Spotted Kiwi (Apteryx owenii). Emu. [abstract]
 
Genome

Le Duc, Renaud, Krishnan, Sällman Almén, Huynen, Prohaska, Ongyerth, Bitarello, Schiöth, Hofreiter, Stadler, Prüfer, Lambert, Kelso & Schöneberg 2015. Kiwi genome provides insights into evolution of a nocturnal lifestyle. Genome Biol 16: 147. [abstract] [pdf]

Max Planck Society, 23 Jul 2015: Kiwi bird genome sequenced.
 
Jia Liu, Qing-xia Ding, and Li-zhi Gao. The complete mitochondrial genome of North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli). Mitochondrial DNA Part B Vol. 2 , Iss. 1,2017.

[pdf]
 
R. P. Scofield, J. R. Wood, L. de Nascimento, H. A. Robertson, R. M. Colbourne, V. L. De Pietri, J. Innes, and J. T. Weir. 2021. Identification of the type locality of the South Island Brown Kiwi Apteryx australis: a nomenclatural framework for the Southern Tokoeka and an insight into the movements of sealers in the early 19th century. Conservation Genetics 22: 645–652.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-021-01349-y

Abstract
New Zealand’s iconic, flightless and endangered species of kiwi (Apterygidae) are at risk of extinction on the mainland due to predation by introduced mammals. In order to provide effective conservation management a robust understanding of genetic variation in the group is needed. Recent genomic analyses of kiwi suggest that several cryptic and as yet undescribed lineages occur in the South Island, most notably within a taxon that has until now been called Apteryx australis australis, the South Island Brown Kiwi or Tokoeka. In order for these lineages to be formally described and treated as separate conservation units it is first necessary to determine from which lineage of Tokoeka the holotype was collected. To determine this, we generated a near complete mitochondrial genome and nuclear SNP dataset for the holotype and compared these with living kiwi populations. Our results definitively assign the holotype to the Stewart Island population of brown kiwi which until now was recognized as a distinct subspecies Apteryx australis lawyri (Rothschild, 1893). This leads us to synonymize Apteryx lawryi Rothschild, 1893 within Apteryx australis Shaw, 1813. As the holotype was collected by sealers in the early 19th century, the result also provides a novel insight into the activities of early sealers in New Zealand. New names for taxa will need to be erected for any mainland South Island taxa described, because there are no scientific names available for taxonomy.
 
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