Tech & Innovation
All of Earth’s songbirds originated in Australia before island hopping their way across the globeThe songbirds that are common in gardens all across the world have a surprisingly distant origin. They all evolved from a common ancestor that emerged from what is now Australia around 24 million years ago. How they managed to leave this isolated part of the world and spread all over the planet has long been a mystery to scientists. But a new study suggests they began spreading just as the islands in and around Indonesia were being formed, creating a pathway for them to cross what had previously been thousands of kilometers of open ocean.
Updated July 21, 20225 min read