Aldabra: Aldabra Atoll – Aldabra Flightless Rail

Aldabra Atoll is in many ways similar to Galapagos or Madagascar – the remoteness and isolation of it resulted in almost all species of plants and animals being endemic and uniques. One of the most bizarre and amazing animals is the Aldabra Rail. It is the only flightless bird in the Indian Ocean, like kiwi in NZ. The story of this bird I truly amazing as it has undergone multiple instances of adaptive re-evolution. The ancestor rails probably lived in Madagascar and evolved to be able to fly. The birds flew to Aldabra and there, in the absence of predators, adapted back to being flightless, which is known as iterative evolution. Interestingly, this actually happened a couple times in the evolutionary history of the bird.