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Aldabra Rail: The Bird that Evolved Twice
On a small island in the Indian Ocean, flightless is the way to be.
© Charles Davies
Over 130,000 years ago, White-throated Rails migrated across hundreds of miles from Madagascar to the tiny island of Aldabra. Fossil records show that these wayward birds evolved to be entirely flightless, and went extinct when the island was lost to sea level rise. But some 20,000 years later, Aldabra reemerged from the Indian Ocean and a new wave of rails settled in. Today, the Aldabra subspecies of White-throated Rails are flightless once again! It’s a rare example of a phenomenon called iterative evolution.
BirdNote®
Aldabra Rail: The Bird That Evolved Twice
Written by Adé Ben-Salahuddin
This is BirdNote.
Many sci-fi writers — and even some scientists — dream of bringing extinct species back to life. But it turns out that nature has already re-evolved at least one long-lost bird.
[White-throated Rail from Madagascar]
Over 130 thousand years ago, a population of White-throated Rails migrated across hundreds of miles of open ocean from Madagascar to the tiny island of Aldabra. Fossil records show that these wayward birds evolved to be entirely flightless. With no land predators, this adaptation served them well… until sea levels rose and Aldabra disappeared beneath the Indian Ocean for millenia.
[Crash of a wave]
But some 20 thousand years later, Aldabra reemerged and a new wave of White-throated Rails arrived from Madagascar. Today, these reddish-brown chicken-sized birds with olive-green backs can be found skulking about the mangroves, but never on the wing. Because, just like their ancient predecessors, the Aldabra subspecies of White-throated Rails evolved to be flightless once again. It’s a rare example of a phenomenon called iterative evolution.
[White-throated Rail from Madagascar]
As the only flightless bird left in the region, efforts are now underway to recognize the Aldabra rails as their own species. A move that will hopefully facilitate protections that ensure these evolutionary oddities aren't lost a second time.
[White-throated Rail from Madagascar]
For BirdNote, I’m Adé Ben-Salahuddin.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. White-throated Rail ML504218371 recorded by Peter Boesman; White-throated Rail ML95412 recorded by Tom Schulenberg; White-throated Rail ML93687 recorded by Linda Macaulay.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote February 2026
Narrator: Adé Ben-Salahuddin
ID# evolution-06-2026-02-17 evolution-06
Reference:
https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlz018/5487031
