Researchers Rediscover Boobies: Not Extinct After All!
For centuries, the Tasman booby, Sula tasmani, was believed to be extinct. Until now, that is. With the help of modern technology, a team of researchers from New Zealand and Australia have discovered the “extinct” booby is in fact a subspecies of the living Masked booby, Sula dactylatra fullagari.
- » See also: Great Lakes Ecosystems May be Compromised by… Carp?
- » Get EcoWorldly by RSS or sign up by email.
Believed to have been eaten into extinction by hungry sailors from long ago, there is an easy explanation why the same seabird had two different names. Lack of communication! Biologists and paleontologists simply did not communicate with one another over the years.
Experts compared ancient DNA with modern bird DNA. The team of researchers, led by Dr. Tammy E. Steeves from the University of Canterbury, found an “overlap in size between fossil and modern birds in the North Tasman Sea.” This was the first time a study rediscovered an extinct bird using classical “palaeontological data combined with ancient and modern DNA data.” The “rediscovered” bird now has a new name, Sula dactylatra tasmani.
Despite it’s unusual name, booby is derived from the Spanish term, “bobof” or “bobo” which means clown, naïve or stupid. If the bird is nesting and approached by humans, it won’t leave the nest, making it an easy catch for hungry sailors, according to Steeves.
The large masked booby has a wingspan of about 5 feet and is considered Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The study, Merging ancient and modern DNA: Extinct seabird taxon rediscovered in North Tasman Sea, was published in the science journal of Biology Letters.
