Tuesday, June 17, 2008

New bird from Columbia

From the SerranĂ­a de los YariguĂ­es mountains in Colombia comes the world's newest bird, a subspecies of the Pale-bellied Tapaculo christened Cytalopus griseicollis gilesi after conservationist Robert Giles. The mostly-gray bird is distinguished from other Pale-bellied Tapaculos by differences in its calls as well as a darker back and longer tail.
COMMENT: OK, it's "only" a subspecies - a category some biologists have almost given up on. But every distinct animal we find, every new addition to the richness of the zoological gene pool, is important. Expeditions to this same area have already yielded a new butterfly species and a strikingly colorful new species of bird, the Yariguies Brush-Finch described in 2006. Keep up the search!

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