{
  "id": 11014572,
  "title": "How New World blackbirds conquered the Americas",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/30/how-new-world-blackbirds-conquered-the-americas",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-30T19:40:06.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-09-world-blackbirds-conquered-americas.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The New World blackbird family, Icteridae, comprises over 100 species of songbirds thriving from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. For decades, researchers debated the origin and spread of these birds across the Americas. A recent study led by Dr. Axel Arango Garcia and Professor Chaitanya S. Gokhale from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) has shed light on their evolutionary history. The findings suggest that icterids likely originated in North America before gradually spreading southward over millions of years. The study, published in the journal Frontiers of Biogeography, analyzed distribution data and evolutionary trees of 104 of the 106 recognized species. The scientists found that the birds' ancestors reached Mesoamerica and the Caribbean around 7.5 million years ago, followed by Amazonia around 6.1 million years ago and the Andes shortly thereafter. Southern South America was reached around 4.8 million years ago, with Patagonia around 2.7 million years ago. Interestingly, these dates align with the Isthmus of Panama not yet fully formed, suggesting the birds may have reached South America via open water crossings or existing land connections. The researchers propose that the spread of icterids into South America coincided with the expansion of open, grass-dominated habitats, though they cannot definitively prove that these environmental changes directly caused the birds' southward expansion. The study also indicates that new species mainly evolved within regions already colonized, with similar rates of speciation in North and South America. Factors such as specialization in food and habitats, social behavior, and mate choice likely influenced the emergence of new species.",
  "summary": "Where did the roughly 100 species of New World blackbirds alive today originate, and how did they spread across the Americas? Dr. Axel Arango Garcia and professor Chaitanya S. Gokhale from the Chair for Computational and Theoretical Biology (CCTB) at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) have reconstructed the evolutionary history of this family of birds.",
  "key_points": [
    "New World blackbird family Icteridae comprises over 100 species.",
    "Icterids likely originated in North America before spreading southward.",
    "Spread dates align with Isthmus of Panama's formation timeline."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}