Rare kakapo parrot is genetically healthy despite being very inbred

Via Clare Wilson

A critically endangered New Zealand flightless parrot has existed as a purebred population for so long it has had fewer harmful mutations than expected.

This may be because many of the birds affected by the mutations have died out over the past few thousand years. “For inbreeding, at the population level, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Love Dalén at the Center for Paleontology Genetics in Stockholm, Sweden.

The findings came from the first kakapo genome study (Strigops habroptilus),…