Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1995 Dec 5;92(25):11662–11665. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.25.11662

Phylogenetic relationships of the hoatzin, an enigmatic South American bird.

S B Hedges 1, M D Simmons 1, M A van Dijk 1, G J Caspers 1, W W de Jong 1, C G Sibley 1
PMCID: PMC40462  PMID: 8524824

Abstract

The hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) lives in the humid lowlands of northern and central South America, often in riparian habitats. It is a slender bird approximately 65 cm in length, brownish with lighter streaks and buffy tips to the long tail feathers. The small head has a ragged, bristly crest of reddish-brown feathers, and the bare skin of the face is bright blue. It resembles a chachalaca (Ortalis, Cracidae) in size and shape, but its plumage and markings are similar to those of the smaller guira cuckoo (Guira guira). The hoatzin (pronounced Watson) has been a taxonomic puzzle since it was described in 1776. It usually has been viewed as related to the gallinaceous birds, but alliances to other groups have been suggested, including the cuckoos. We present DNA sequence evidence from the 12S and 16S rRNA mitochondrial genes, and from the nuclear gene that codes for the eye lens protein, alpha A-crystallin. The results indicate that the hoatzin is most closely related to the typical cuckoos and that the divergence occurred at or near the base of the cuculiform phylogenetic tree.

Full text

PDF
11662

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Avise J. C., Nelson W. S., Sibley C. G. Why one-kilobase sequences from mitochondrial DNA fail to solve the Hoatzin phylogenetic enigma. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 1994 Jun;3(2):175–184. doi: 10.1006/mpev.1994.1019. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Cabot E. L., Beckenbach A. T. Simultaneous editing of multiple nucleic acid and protein sequences with ESEE. Comput Appl Biosci. 1989 Jul;5(3):233–234. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/5.3.233. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Caspers G. J., Wattel J., de Jong W. W. Alpha A-crystallin sequences group tinamou with ratites. Mol Biol Evol. 1994 Jul;11(4):711–713. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040150. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Devereux J., Haeberli P., Smithies O. A comprehensive set of sequence analysis programs for the VAX. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Jan 11;12(1 Pt 1):387–395. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.1part1.387. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Grajal A., Strahl S. D., Parra R., Gloria Dominguez M., Neher A. Foregut fermentation in the hoatzin, a neotropical leaf-eating bird. Science. 1989 Sep 15;245(4923):1236–1238. doi: 10.1126/science.245.4923.1236. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Hedges S. B. Molecular evidence for the origin of birds. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Mar 29;91(7):2621–2624. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.7.2621. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Hedges S. B., Sibley C. G. Molecules vs. morphology in avian evolution: the case of the "pelecaniform" birds. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Oct 11;91(21):9861–9865. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.21.9861. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Hendriks W., Mulders J. W., Bibby M. A., Slingsby C., Bloemendal H., de Jong W. W. Duck lens epsilon-crystallin and lactate dehydrogenase B4 are identical: a single-copy gene product with two distinct functions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Oct;85(19):7114–7118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.19.7114. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Kimura M. A simple method for estimating evolutionary rates of base substitutions through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. J Mol Evol. 1980 Dec;16(2):111–120. doi: 10.1007/BF01731581. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Kocher T. D., Thomas W. K., Meyer A., Edwards S. V., Päbo S., Villablanca F. X., Wilson A. C. Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in animals: amplification and sequencing with conserved primers. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Aug;86(16):6196–6200. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.16.6196. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Kornegay J. R., Schilling J. W., Wilson A. C. Molecular adaptation of a leaf-eating bird: stomach lysozyme of the hoatzin. Mol Biol Evol. 1994 Nov;11(6):921–928. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040173. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Kumar S., Tamura K., Nei M. MEGA: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software for microcomputers. Comput Appl Biosci. 1994 Apr;10(2):189–191. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/10.2.189. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Saitou N., Nei M. The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Mol Biol Evol. 1987 Jul;4(4):406–425. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040454. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Sitnikova T., Rzhetsky A., Nei M. Interior-branch and bootstrap tests of phylogenetic trees. Mol Biol Evol. 1995 Mar;12(2):319–333. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040205. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Stapel S. O., Leunissen J. A., Versteeg M., Wattel J., de Jong W. W. Ratites as oldest offshoot of avian stem--evidence from alpha-crystallin A sequences. Nature. 1984 Sep 20;311(5983):257–259. doi: 10.1038/311257a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES