Called the Rēkohu shelduck(Tadorna rekohuthe brand-new types lived in the Chatham Islands, a separated island chain 785 km east of mainland New Zealand.

“This island chain makes up the primary Chatham Island, in addition to Rangihaute Pitt, Maung’ Re Mangere, Tapuaenuku Little Mangere, Hokorereoro South East Islands, and numerous islets,” stated University of Otago’s Dr. Nic Rawlence and his coworkers.

“The islands were entirely immersed throughout the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene.”

“Subsequent tectonic activity triggered the island archipelago to reappear less than 3 million years earlier.”

According to the group, the forefathers of the Rēkohu shelduck showed up on the Chatham Islands around 390,000 years back throughout the Late Pleistocene.

“While this might appear like a brief time period, it is long enough to affect the types,” Dr. Rawlence stated.

“In that time the Rēkohu shelduck progressed much shorter, more robust wings and longer leg bones suggesting it was decreasing the path towards flightlessness.”

“These modifications was because of a series of aspects, such as an abundance of food, absence of ground-dwelling predators, and windy conditions, so flying was not the chosen choice.”

“In a case of usage it or lose it, the wings begin to decrease,” stated Dr. Pascale Lubbe, likewise from the University of Otago.

“Flight is energetically costly, so if you do not need to fly, why trouble.”

“The longer leg bones are more robust to support more muscle and produce increased force for liftoff– essential when you have smaller sized wings.”

The scientists utilized ancient DNA and examined the shape of the bones to identify the Rēkohu shelduck is most carefully associated to the pūtangitangi paradise shelduck (Tadorna variegatefrom New Zealand.

The Rēkohu shelduck invested more time on the ground than its cousin and ended up being extinct previous to the 19th century.

“The existence of Rēkohu shelduck bones in early Moriori midden deposits recommends its termination was because of over-hunting prior to the later European and Māori settlement of the islands in the 19th century,” the researchers stated.

Their paper was released in the July 2025 problem of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

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Nicolas J. Rawlence et al2025. Ancient DNA and morphometrics expose a brand-new types of extinct insular shelduck from Rēkohu Chatham Islands. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 204 (3 ): zlaf069; doi: 10.1093/ zoolinnean/zlaf069