Flightless bird more species of flightless birds (including the kiwi, several species of penguins, the takahe, the weka, the moa, and several other extinct species) than any other such location. One reason is that until the arrival of humans roughly a thousand years ago, there were no large land predators in New Zealand; the main predators of flightless birds were larger birds. Ratites belong to the superorder Palaeognathae birds, which include the volant tinamou, and are believed to have evolved flightlessness independently multiple times within their own group. Some birds evolved flightlessness in response to the absence of predators, for example on
Flightless fruit fly as convenient feeders for a variety of companion animals and even as test subjects in aeronautical research Flightless fruit fly Flightless fruit flies (Order Diptera) encompasses a variety of different species of fly, such as "Drosophila melanogaster", "Bactrocera cucurbitae", "Bactrocera dorsalis", and "Drosophila hydei", with genetic mutations that cause them to be flightless. These genetic mutations may have different results such as the development of muscles that cannot support flight or even result in the lack of wings entirely. Flightless fly models have been especially useful for the study of human neuromuscular diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy, spinobulbar muscular