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Convergent Evolution Upends Honeyeaters' Taxonomy

grrlscientist writes in with a beautiful piece of science, beautifully explicated. The poignant bit is that the birds in question are all extinct. "Every once in awhile, I will read a scientific paper that astonishes and delights me so much that I can hardly wait to tell you all about it. Such is the situation with a newly published paper about the Hawai'ian Honeyeaters. In short, due to the remarkable power of convergent evolution, Hawai'ian Honeyeaters have thoroughly deceived taxonomists and ornithologists as to their true origin and identity for more than 200 years."

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who is this grrlscientist? by Hemogoblin · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Internet: where Men are Men, Women are Men, and 14 Year Old Girls are FBI Agents.

  2. Something about stats I think... by florescent_beige · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maximum likelihood phylogram constructed from analysis of up to 421 nucleotide sites of b-fibrinogen introns 5 and 7 combined. At nodes are Bayesian posterior probabilities and ML bootstrap values (100 repetitions).

    There are two kind of people in the world...the kind that thinks the new Day the Earth Stood Still is science fiction, and the kind that thinks it would have been if Klaatu had said to Barnhardt something like that.

    --
    Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
  3. Re:Who is this grrlscientist? by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Where'd all these girls come from lately, anyway?

    We've come to be your new estrogen-based overlords, and we're offering free iPods to the first 100 people who welcome us.*

  4. Re:very curious by Chyeld · · Score: 4, Funny

    He has a masters in readology. He really wasn't commenting on the article. Just his inability to read it.