September 12, 2006
by James Owen
For National Geographic News
Photo: National Geographic
An amateur bird-watcher has found the first new bird species to be discovered in India in over 50 years.
The strikingly colored species was identified from feathers and photos taken in remote forests in the northeast part of the country.
No specimen was taken, because “we thought the bird was just too rare for one to be killed,” said Ramana Athreya, the bird’s discoverer, in a statement.
Named Bugun liocichla, the small bird is described as a type of babbler, a diverse family of birds that usually live in tropical forests.
Read the entire article at National Geographic.com
Also, cool.
Wow, they aren’t going to tag and track it just so we know where it goes?! Yay! That is a great change of attitude. Unlike the treatment the poor pygmy tarsiers from Indonesia got, where scientists put satellite trackers on three of them. Just leave them alone! Protecting their habitat is all we should be doing. The rarer something is should mean less interference surely.