In just 22 million years or so, hummingbirds have rapidly diversified from a single ancestor into more than 300 species, and some lineages are still generating new species at an extraordinary rate.
Jimmy McGuire at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues compared the DNA sequences of 284 hummingbird species, including Selasphorus flammula (pictured).
They found that the birds first diverged from their sister group, the swifts, around 42 million years ago and have diversified into 9 major lineages in South America over the past 22 million years. Speciation has been particularly dramatic in the Andes mountains, which have a wide range of habitats and climates and are home to 40% of hummingbird species.
The researchers calculate that there could be as many as 767 species of hummingbird in the next several million years — more than twice the number that currently exist.
Curr. Biol. http://doi.org/r6v (2014)
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Hummingbird species on the rise. Nature 508, 152 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/508152a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/508152a
