Tuesday, September 12, 2006

India's First New Bird in Half-Century

And it's a colorful new species, too.

The man who found India's newest bird is an astronomer and amateur birder named Ramana Athreya, a member of Mumbai's Natural History Society. The new species, Liocichla sp., comes from the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It sports a bright yellow patch around the eyes, a a black cap, and yellow, crimson, black and white patches on the wings.
(Thanks to Darren Naish for a correction on this post.)

1 comment:

Darren Naish said...

'Bugan liocichla' isn't the binomial name: Liocichla is a generic name which is also used as the vernacular name for these birds. So the full binomial will be Liocichla whateveri (the species is not named yet), and the full common name will (presumably) be something like Athreya's liocichla, or the Black-capped liocichla, or whatever.