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Yahoo News 12 Sep 06
New bird found in India after more than 50 years

Yahoo News 12 Sep 06
Amateur twitcher finds new bird species in India
by Elizabeth Roche

NEW DELHI (AFP) - A new species of bird has been discovered in a wildlife reserve in a remote corner of India, a nature conservation institute has said.

It was the first discovery of a new bird in India in almost 60 years.

"The discovery of the Bugun Liocichla, a kind of babbler, has been credited to professional astronomer Ramana Athreya," a spokesman for the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) said Tuesday.

The bird was named after the Bugun tribe and found in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh state, which borders China, Athreya told AFP by telephone. The discovery joins three others named in the Liocichlas category -- the Liocichlas Phoenicea, the Liocichlas Steerii and Liocichlas Omeiensis -- found only in Asia from northeast India to Vietnam, he said.

"The Bugun, which is strikingly coloured, measures 22 centimetres (8.66 inches), closely resembles the Omeiensis, which is found in China and named after the habitat in which it is found, the Omei Shan Mountains in Sichuan," Athreya said.

The Bugun's known population consists of only 14 birds, including three breeding pairs.

The last bird species to be discovered in mainland India was the rusty-throated "Mishmi" wren-babbler, Spelaeornis badeigularis, also in Arunachal Pradesh in 1948, the BNHS spokesman said.

India is home to more than 1,200 species of birds and also plays host to countless migratory varieties, he said.

Athreya, who works at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in the central Indian city of Pune, said he first spotted the Bugun in 1995. "When I spotted the bird again in January 2005, I knew for certain I was not hallucinating in 1995," he said.

But it was only in May this year after further investigation that he "was able to say with certainty" that a new species of bird had been found, Athreya said.

The Bugun's overall plumage is coloured various shades of olive, Athreya said. It has a black cap, a bright yellow patch in front of its eyes, golden-yellow, crimson, black and white patches on its wings and red-tipped tail feathers, which are flame-coloured on the underside.

Germany's Jochen Martens, a professor at the Institute of Zoology in Mainz, and Pamela C. Rasmussen, the assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology at Michigan State university, verified the Bugun Liocichlas as a new species, Athreya said.

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature then approved the name, he added.

Asad Rahmani, director of the BNHS, congratulated Athreya. "This discovery again proves the importance and need for extensive research and exploration in northeastern India," Rahmani said in a statement.

"We also must see that the habitat is protected for such species. Presumably the new species has a tiny range so habitat protection is very important for its survival," he added.

Yahoo News 12 Sep 06
New bird found in India after more than 50 years

By Nita Bhalla Tue Sep 12, 4:05 AM ET NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A striking multi-colored bird has been discovered in India's remote northeast, making it the first ornithological find in the country in more than half a century, experts said on Tuesday.

The Bugun Liocichla, scientifically known as Liocichla bugunorum, a kind of babbler, was discovered in May at the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in India's hilly state of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China.

The bird -- with olive and golden-yellow plumage, a black cap and flame-tipped wings -- is 20 cm (8 inches) in length and named after the Bugun tribespeople who live on the sanctuary's periphery.

Professional astronomer and keen birdwatcher, Ramana Athreya, who discovered the bird said that although two Bugun Liocichlas were caught and examined at the sanctuary, both were released and no scientific specimen collected.

"We thought the bird was just too rare for one to be killed (for scientific study)," said Ramana. "With today's modern technology, we could gather all the information we needed to confirm it as a new species. We took feathers and photographs, and recorded the bird's song."

Athreya wrote a paper which was circulated among foreign and Indian experts including Pamela C. Rasmussen, assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology at Michigan State university, and author of The Ripley Guide of Birds of South Asia.

The experts verified the Bugun Liocichlas as a new species and the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature then approved the name.

"The discovery of a new bird is really special," said Aasheesh Pittie, editor of Indian Birds bi-monthly journal where the description of the Bugun liocichla was published. "But when it's a stunning species with no geographically close relatives, and in a part of the world where bird collectors have sampled birds for more than a century, it's nothing short of miraculous."

The last new bird species to be discovered in mainland India was the Rusty-throated "Mishmi" Wren-babbler Spelaeornis badeigularis in Arunachal Pradesh in 1948.

The known population of the Bugun Liocichla consists of only 14, including three breeding pairs.

Ramana first sighted the bird at the sanctuary in 1995 but it was more than a decade before he saw it again. "Even then I knew it was something very special," he said. "The only bird that looks remotely like it is the Emei Shan liocichla, which is known from only a few mountains in central China, more than 1,000-km (620-miles) from Eaglenest."

Ramana failed to spot the birds again until May 2006 when he eventually succeeded in trapping two birds with nets.

International bird conservation groups are elated. "A priority now is to find out if other populations of this remarkable species exist elsewhere and what its habitat requirements are, so that appropriate conservation measures can be put in place," said Nigel Collar of Birdlife International.
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