Towheeblog

Check out this photo gallery of animal species new to science. If you’re seeking the only bird that made this list, it’s the Imperial Pigeon, #23.

Here are some of the other new avian species discovered in this young century.  With links.

Borneo’s Spectacled Flowerpecker.

Not a totally new discovery.  But Australian taxonomists are splitting the eastern and western ground parrots there to create a newly recognized species.

Long seen, but newly recognized, is the blue-gray eyed shrike of African shrike.

Then there’s Fenwick’s Antipitta, recently found, described and released alive in Columbia’s montane forest.

Here’s a photo collection of new and even undescribed birds in Peru.

The experience around the Fenwick Antpitta is instructive.  An accepted scientific description has been without killing the subject.  This is a very new development in the mautring of ornithology.  Tradition once required a dead bird or several dead birds, if possible, before a new species was widely accepted.  Scientific maturity, digital photography and DNA sampling has now made that Victorian outlook obsolete so even new and rare specimens can live. I myself have seen a new owl species still awaiting it;s official recognition among species.  It can be seen regularly at the San Isidro ecolodge on the eastern slope of the Andes in Peru.  Here’s my picture taken last fall:

He loves to feed on moths around the one pole light in the parking lot at San Isidro.  He’s about 15 inches tall.  This species is believed to be related to, but separate , both the Black-banded Owl of the eastern lowlands in Ecuador and the Black-and-white Owl of the western lowlands.  The bird has now been discovered in the montane forest of southern Columbia as well.  DNA analysis and frequent and continued observation of the owls will eventually produce a scientific description and the long-awaited Latin binomial.  When this owl was first noticed at San Isidro, everybody involved refused to kill either one of the two adult owls observed there. Bravo!

Here are some links related to this un-named owl.

Cabanas San Isidro.

Here are some photos dating back to 2002.

This owl with no name, yet, is highlight of almost birding trip to the Ecuadoran Andes.  A Google search for San Isidro Owl turns up lots of links.