RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 An extinct hummingbird species that never was: a cautionary tale about sampling issues in molecular phylogenetics JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 149898 DO 10.1101/149898 A1 Jorge L. Pérez-Emán A1 Jhoniel Perdigón Ferreira A1 Natalia Gutiérrez-Pinto A1 Andrés M. Cuervo A1 Laura N. Céspedes A1 Christopher C. Witt A1 Carlos Daniel Cadena YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/14/149898.abstract AB The Bogota Sunangel (Heliangelus zusii) was described based on a historical specimen lacking locality data as a striking–and potentially extinct– new species of hummingbird more than two decades ago. However, it was considered a dubious taxon by some researchers until a molecular study with strong species-level taxon sampling revealed its phylogenetic affinities and validated its status as a distinct species. We reanalysed existing mitochondrial DNA data together with a new data set sampling multiple populations of the Long-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus kingii), a species broadly distributed in the Andes of South America. In contrast to previous work, we found that H. zusii shares a haplotype with specimens of A. kingii from the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, which is phylogenetically nested within a clade formed by populations of A. kingii from the Colombian Andes. These results suggest that H. zusii is not a distinct species, but is most likely the result of hybridization between a female A. kingii and a male of another hummingbird species. These findings highlight the importance of thorough taxonomic and geographic sampling when assessing the likelihood of hybrid origin of an organism, particularly in cases potentially involving wide-ranging species in areas where deep phylogeographic structure is likely.