Origin of the mysterious Black Francolin (Francolinus francolinus) populations from greece and Northern Africa finally unveiled

Biological collections host valuable specimens that may be key to addressing long-debated issues in different research fields, including conservation biology and historical biogeography. In this study, we use 200-year-old museums specimens to assess the contentious nature (i.e., the nativeness versus the allochthony) - of the black francolin (Francolinus francolinus, Phasianidae) populations once resident in Greece and northern Africa. This species, presently ranging from Cyprus and the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, was deemed to have persisted in these Mediterranean regions until the first decades of the 19th century by some authors, yet this hypothesis had been firmly disproved by others due to the lack of supporting historical material and the fragmentary the literary evidence available. Nevertheless, we found four 200-year-old museum specimens - arguably the only ones still available from Greece and northern Africa - and sequenced their mitochondrial DNA Control Region. The comparison with conspecifics (n = 396) from the entirety of the historic and current species range unveiled that the new samples belong to previously identified genetic groups from the Near East and the Indian subcontinent. Other than denying the occurrence of an allegedly native westernmost subspecies, our finding corroborates the role of the Crown of Aragon behind the circum-Mediterranean expansion of the black francolin, including Greece and northern Africa. Genetic evidence points to long-distance trade of these birds along the Silk Road to be sold in the Eastern Mediterranean first, and from there further west in Europe and northern Africa.