India, Sept. 22 -- This question has been around for many years. It has been a mystery since scientists and bird enthusiasts first encountered the dark, shiny bird among the black rocks of the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos lava heron, considered by many researchers to be nothing more than a subspecies of the striated heron from South America, turns out to be its own distinct species after all, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

The difficulty in identifying the bird was that it was hiding in plain sight. Whereas some birds live in remote caves and dark ocean trenches, lava herons are common inhabitants of Galapagos coastlines, where they remain still and wait for crabs and small fish t...