Boobies found to be still bobbing

Masked boobies, of which the Tasman booby is a subspecies, are seen at Lord Howe Island. Photo / Tourism New South Wales

Tammy Steeves is fascinated by boobies and she's not afraid to admit it.

The Canterbury University biology researcher has heard all the jokes about the unusually named seabird she has studied over the past decade.

Now she is winning plaudits as well as the giggles after helping rediscover a species of booby that was long considered extinct.

A team of Australasian scientists led by Dr Steeves has proven that the Tasman booby (Sula tasmani) was not driven into extinction by hungry European sailors in the late 18th century after all.

The university says it is the first study of its kind to report the rediscovery of an extinct bird using data on bone measurements and comparison of ancient DNA with DNA from modern birds.

"Many rediscoveries of 'extinct' birds are the result of an intensive search in the field, but ours is a little different. We rediscovered our bird in the laboratory," Dr Steeves said.

"Despite limited sampling, we found an overlap in skeletal size between fossil and modern boobies in the north Tasman Sea, and show that fossil birds have [DNA] sequences that are identical to those found in modern north Tasman Sea birds."

The Tasman booby turned out be a subspecies of a living species, the masked booby (Sula dactylatra fullagari). It now has a new name - Sula dactylatra tasmani.

Dr Steeves said the name booby came from the Spanish "bobof", meaning stupid or naive.

"When they are nesting, if you approach them quietly, they won't move because they stay on the nest. And so they are really easy to catch. And if you're hungry, that's a good thing. So the story is that the Spanish sailors called them bobof.

"But they're not stupid birds, they are beautiful birds.

"I've been working on these things for about 10 years now, but I have to remind myself when I'm meeting people for the first time, when they ask me what I do. Often they are not ready for it."

The research findings have just been published online in the science journal Biology Letters.