Re: NEORNITHINE PHYLOGENY etc / Gondwanan groups

["David Marjanovic" <David.Marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Some days ago, I wrote...

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
To: "The Dinosaur Mailing List" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: NEORNITHINE PHYLOGENY etc / Gondwanan groups


> ostriches and rheas (sister groups)

Wrong. I had already forgotten the newest mtDNA phylogeny of ratites:

Alan Cooper, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Simon Anderson, Andrew Rambaut, Jeremy
Austin & Ryk Ward: Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of two extinct
moas clarify ratite evolution, Nature 409, 704 -- 706 (8 February 2001)

(tinamous and chicken as outgroups)
--+--------------------------------- Rhea
    `---+---------------------+----- *Emeus*
          |                                 `------- *Dinornis*
          `--+--------------------------------------Ostrich
               `--+........--> Elephant-bird
                    |----------------------- Kiwi
                    `--------+------------- Cassowary
                                  `------------ Emu

position of elephant-birds based on very fragmentary mtDNA from *Mullerornis
agilis*

I've tried to make the branch lengths more or less proportional to the
original figure (------------- ~ 0.1 substitutions per site ;-) ).
Results -- except for the ostrich ratite mtDNA evolved a lot like a
molecular clock, elephant-birds must have crossed India without staying
there while ostriches were delivered on it to Asia, and this all happened in
the LK when the Kerguelen Plateau was still a land bridge. And none left any
fossils... I expect further surprises from LK Antarctica.

I've got the same virus another 12 times...

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The informatics chief of Celera Genomics is called Gene Myers.