Hummingbird (IMAGE)

Field Museum

Hummingbird

Caption

Contrary to conventional thinking, colorful, daytime hummingbirds (photographed here) evolved from drab nocturnal nightjars (see next photograph). This is one of the surprising conclusions of a huge new research project about the evolutionary relationships of birds to be published in Science June 27, 2008. The research looked at 169 different species of birds, analyzing five times as much DNA per species as any previous study.

Credit

Photo by Christopher Wood, courtesy of the Field Museum.

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