Data from: Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution

The evolution of the ratite birds has been widely attributed to vicariant
speciation, driven by the Cretaceous breakup of the supercontinent
Gondwana. The early isolation of Africa and Madagascar implies that the
ostrich and extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornithidae) should be
the oldest ratite lineages. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two
elephant birds and performed phylogenetic analyses, which revealed that
these birds are the closest relatives of the New Zealand kiwi and are
distant from the basal ratite lineage of ostriches. This unexpected result
strongly contradicts continental vicariance and instead supports flighted
dispersal in all major ratite lineages. We suggest that convergence toward
gigantism and flightlessness was facilitated by early Tertiary expansion
into the diurnal herbivory niche after the extinction of the dinosaurs.