David W. Steadman

New Capabilities

Co-author of the study; paleontologist who studied Caribbean bird fossils

Biologists assumed barn owls reached the Americas by crossing land bridges from Asia or Europe, then spreading across the mainland. A genomic study reported in Nature on October 27 overturns that: their ancestors flew over the Atlantic from Eurasia, landed in the Caribbean first, and only later moved onto both American continents.

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