Scientists have successfully reconstructed the genome of the extinct Lānaʻi hookbill, resolving questions surrounding one of Hawaiʻi’s rarest museum specimens and demonstrating the growing scientific value of historic natural history collections.
The bird, a member of Hawaiʻi’s distinctive honeycreeper group, is known from just one surviving specimen. For more than a century, its poor condition prevented researchers from conducting detailed genetic analysis.
New Techniques Recover Severely Degraded DNA
The Lānaʻi hookbill is far less familiar than Hawaiian birds such as the nēnē, ʻiʻiwi and manu-o-Kū. Its sole surviving specimen is held by the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, where exposure to tropical temperatures contributed to the deterioration of its genetic material.
Researchers had long believed the remaining DNA was too degraded to provide useful information. However, advances in ancient DNA analysis have now allowed Smithsonian scientists to sequence the bird’s entire genome.
Michael Campana, a Smithsonian scientist specialising in animal and pathogen genomics, said ancient DNA was a broad term covering any genetic sample that had deteriorated over time.
“The samples can range from pretty recent, almost forensic-like stuff … to samples like woolly mammoths,” he said.
While the Lānaʻi hookbill specimen is not ancient in the archaeological sense, heat and time damaged its DNA in much the same way as material recovered from considerably older remains.
“It’s infamously one of the … strangest, most specimens known,” Campana told Hawaiʻi Public Radio. “Now that DNA technology has progressed so much, we were able to do a whole genome on this one specimen.”
Genome Reveals Hybridisation and Bird’s Sex
The genetic analysis produced evidence that the Lānaʻi hookbill had hybridised with other Hawaiian bird species. The finding could help researchers develop a clearer picture of how the islands’ honeycreepers evolved and adapted.
Hawaiian honeycreepers are known for their considerable diversity in beak shape, feeding behaviour and habitat. Their evolutionary history has long interested scientists studying how isolated island environments produce highly specialised species.
The genome also enabled researchers to confirm that the museum specimen was female, a detail that had not previously been established.
“This was exciting because not only were we able to do a whole genome on this tiny little thing, we were able to confirm that it was a female. We were able to reconstruct its sex chromosomes,” Campana said.
Some questions remain, and the scientists are continuing their efforts to complete the genetic picture.
“We’re still working on that, to try to fill those gaps in, but it’s just unique. It’s the remnant of something that was there, and that’s not there anymore.”
Museum Collections Support Conservation Research
The project highlights the importance of museum specimens, including those collected before modern genetic technology existed. Material once used mainly for physical comparison can now provide information about ancestry, disease, population change and extinction.
That principle is also relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand, where museum collections preserve specimens of extinct and threatened native species. Advances in ancient DNA research are increasingly allowing scientists to examine biological material that earlier generations could study only through its visible characteristics.
Rob Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics, acknowledged the significance of the Bishop Museum’s holdings.
“They have one of the best collections of Hawaiian birds in the world, and we felt bad not involving them as much as we wanted to,” Fleischer said.
Campana said such collections were irreplaceable and had applications extending well beyond the reconstruction of evolutionary relationships.
“These things are not — you can’t make them again. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and they’re super valuable, not just for phylogenetics, but conservation efforts,” he said.
“All sorts of different research projects cannot be done without museum specimens.”
By recovering a complete genome from the only known Lānaʻi hookbill specimen, researchers have opened a new window into Hawaiʻi’s lost birdlife. The achievement also shows how carefully preserved museum collections can continue producing important scientific discoveries more than a century after specimens were collected.
Alexander Donovan writes for News Collective, covering news, politics, business, technology, sport, entertainment, and lifestyle. He focuses on clear, reliable reporting and useful information, helping readers stay informed about current events, emerging trends, and stories that matter.