Recently released genetic research is helping scientists better understand how Australian birds evolved. The researchers found that the tiger-parrots of New Guinea‘s rainforests – named for their striped or barred plumage - are not, as has been widely accepted, closely related either to a group of rosella-like parrots found in Australia and Oceania, nor a similar group found in Asia and Africa. In the latest edition of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, they report that tiger-parrots instead occupy their own perch on the parrot evolutionary tree.
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