Hear all about the chain of events that led to the evolution of one of New Zealand's endemic bird families!

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Books used for research:

Birdstories - Geoff Norman
Birds New Zealand (beauty like no other) 2nd ed. - Paul Gibson
Birds of New Zealand and Outlying Islands - M.F Soper
The Brilliance of Birds - Skye Wishart and Edin Whitehead

Research articles cited:

Aidala, Z., Chong, N., Anderson, M. G., Ortiz-Catedral, L., Jamieson, I. G., Briskie, J. V., ... & Hauber, M. E. (2013). Phylogenetic relationships of the genus Mohoua, endemic hosts of New Zealand’s obligate brood parasitic Long-tailed Cuckoo (Eudynamys taitensis). Journal of Ornithology, 154, 1127-1133.

Fidler, A. E., Aidala, Z., Anderson, M. G., Ortiz-Catedral, L., & Hauber, M. E. (2016). Pseudogenisation of the short-wavelength sensitive 1 (SWS1) opsin gene in two New Zealand endemic passerine species: the Yellowhead (Mohoua ochrocephala) and Brown creeper (M. novaeseelandiae). The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 128(1), 159-163.

McCullough, J. M., Oliveros, C. H., Benz, B. W., Zenil-Ferguson, R., Cracraft, J., Moyle, R. G., & Andersen, M. J. (2022). Wallacean and Melanesian islands promote higher rates of diversification within the global passerine radiation Corvides. Systematic Biology, 71(6), 1423-1439.

Oliveros, C. H., Field, D. J., Ksepka, D. T., Barker, F. K., Aleixo, A., Andersen, M. J., ... & Faircloth, B. C. (2019). Earth history and the passerine superradiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(16), 7916-7925.

Olson, S. L. (1990). Comments on the osteology and systematics of the New Zealand passerines of the genus Mohoua. Notornis.