The zoologists, from Trinity College Dublin's School of Natural Sciences, sequenced DNA and took measurements and song recordings from Sulawesi Babblers (Pellorneum celebense), shy birds that live in the undergrowth on Indonesian islands.

 

Although these islands were connected by land bridges just tens of thousands of years ago, and although the babblers look so similar that they are currently all considered a single subspecies, the new study shows that their DNA, body size and song have all changed in what is a very brief period of time from an evolutionary perspective.