Bird believed dead rediscovered - after 140 years
Created: 11/27/2022, 6:00 p.m
By: Lara-Sabrina Kiehl
For more than a century, the black-necked pheasant pigeon was considered lost and possibly extinct.
Now she has been rediscovered.
The black-necked pheasant pigeon lives reclusively on forested and steep slopes of Fergusson Island in Papua New Guinea.
If you want to see them, you need a lot of patience, good shoes and a bit of luck.
In the past 140 years, however, she has not been observed by anyone and there has been no trace of her.
Scientists have even thought it possible that the species could have disappeared from the earth entirely.
But now researchers have been able to discover a specimen of the bird species for the first time since 1882.
Bird believed dead rediscovered - after 140 years
Rediscovered after 140 years: A black-naped pheasant pigeon in Papua New Guinea.
© Cover Images/Imago
In 2019, a team of researchers heard local rumors that a rare groundbird called "Auwo" was said to be haunting the island's undergrowth.
However, the trip there to look for the animal has been delayed due to the corona pandemic.
They finally succeeded this year.
And with success.
However, they only realized what was special about the recordings later.
"It was only after we returned to the United States that we realized that the species had not been observed since 1882," Jordan Boersma, a researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and co-leader of the expedition, told
Live Science
.
A local hunter put the scientists on the right track.
"At that point, the bird seemed like a mythical creature to us because we were chasing it for so long," says Boersma.
The expedition members set up a series of camera traps on Kilkerran, the island's highest mountain.
Two days before their planned departure, their patience finally paid off.
The recordings of a rare "ghost bird" also cause enthusiasm.
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Bird species believed dead rediscovered - sighting of the black-naped pheasant pigeon
One reason scientifically documented sightings of the black-naped pheasant pigeon have been so rare in the past is that the wild bird has only recently been recognized as a distinct species.
It was previously considered a subspecies of the pheasant pigeon until the distinction became official in 2014.
Another reason is that Papua New Guinea and especially Fergusson Island is remote, densely forested and quite mountainous.
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Bird believed dead rediscovered - but it is endangered
However, the rediscovered bird species is already threatened.
The region where the researchers took their photos is to be cleared.
But both the researchers and residents of Fergusson Island hope they can draw attention to the black-naped pheasant dove and help save the species and its forest home.
"We still know next to nothing about this species," Boersma said.
"That's why it's important that we start learning about their ecology, and that's why we're planning a return trip.
For now, all we know is that they still exist.”