What country has the most birds? (1 Viewer)

Many books say that Colombia has the most birds in the world, but is there a good reference for that fact? I have heard that there are 1896 species there, but I don't know where the number comes from. Dennis LePage's Avisys site gives a list of 1851 for Colombia, and 1857 for Peru.

I know the number of species is a moving target, and that the whole species concept is a construct, but does anyone know how I can support Colombia's claim to have the most?

Thanks,

I think it's too close to call. Since Colombia is not the most popular birding destination (great birds, not so great guerilla and paramilitaries), while Peru is relatively secure at the moment, "new" birds are more likely to be found in Peru. I think pelagic trips alone have added a few new birds to its list.
The Colombian list could benefit from vagrants from North America, but that's not really what birders would search for!
In terms of truly new taxa, both countries still hold surprises, but Peru probably most!

Xenospiza said:

I think it's too close to call. Since Colombia is not the most popular birding destination (great birds, not so great guerilla and paramilitaries), while Peru is relatively secure at the moment, "new" birds are more likely to be found in Peru. I think pelagic trips alone have added a few new birds to its list.
The Colombian list could benefit from vagrants from North America, but that's not really what birders would search for!
In terms of truly new taxa, both countries still hold surprises, but Peru probably most!

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Since I posted, I have learned that Paul Salaman, et. al. list 1865 species in their Colombia checklist, referenced below, but that is the most recent I have.

The security situation in the country has improved in the last few years, allowing researchers to visit places that were unsafe. That improvement lead to the discovery of the Upper Magdalena Valley Tapaculo and Stiles' Tapaculo, just published last year. I understand there are still very unsafe areas, that are likely to contain new birds, such as Choco, the Panamanian boarder, and the east.

Still, if anyone has a more recent reference to the number of species in Colombia, I would like to hear of it.

SALAMAN, Paul, Tomás CUADROS, Juan Guillermo JARAMILLO y Walter H. WEBER. Lista de Chequeo de las Aves de Colombia/Checklist of the Birds of Colombia. Sociedad AntioqueZa de Ornitologia, 2001. In English and Spanish. Lists subspecies, English, Spanish, and scientific names. 116 pp. Paper. $15.00 (listed by Buteo books)

En el mundo hay cerca de 9.600 especies de aves, de las cuales Colombia tiene registradas en su territorio 1865 especies, aprox. el 20% de la avifauna mundial, cifra que la convierte en el país que más especies posee. Este número es significativo si lo comparamos con las 780 especies existentes en Estados Unidos y Canadá. Se estima, además, que unas 150 especies de aves migratorias hacen escala o migran a Colombia por el cambio de estaciones en otras latitudes...

Colombia has the 1st spot, followed by Peru and very shortly after Brazil. Colombia is likely to retain its 1st place, and my guess is that Peru will retain its 2nd place, but only beating Brazil by a hair. This is mainly due to a large number of Andean splits just waiting for someone to look at them (although there's also a fair number of splits just waiting for someone to look at them in Brazil). I am aware of undecribed species in all three countries. For these reasons alone, it essentially is impossible to give accurate numbers for these countries (in 2005 one new species was described for Peru, two for Colombia and two for Brazil; it is likely that the numbers for 2006 will be comparable) as they are ever changing.

Did I read somewhere that Costa Rica has the most endemic species??

TURKEY followed by PARROTGUAY :king:

ta brandreth said:

Did I read somewhere that Costa Rica has the most endemic species??

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Off the top of my head Brazil holds the most endemics, followed by Indonesia (quite surprising, over 200) then the Philippines (currently around 185, but this is likely to be a few over 200 in my opinion). The latter two countries also have plenty of further splits in store.

Costa Rica only holds a handful of endemics.

as nature doesn't reflect political boundaries, the concept of the restricted range species was introduced by birdlife international. These are basically species with a breeding range of 50,000 km2 or less.

This has given rise to the concept of endemic bird areas - areas with the complete range of two or more restricted range species within them. The following data is from Endemic Bird Areas of the World (a book i worked on as a volunteer at BirdLife International for two months).

Tim

By these criteria the countries with most restricted range birds are:
Indonesia
Peru
Clombia
Papua New Guinea
Brazil
Ecuador
Philippines

Countries with most endemic bird areas are:
Indonesia
Mexico
Peru
Brazil

Highest numbers of threatened restricted range species are:
Philippines
Indonesia
Brazil
Colombia

Yes but Colombia is starting to catch with Peru, 9 birds new to Colombia have just been discovered in the South-east part of this country, and the Northern regions of Colombia is a likely place to throw up some more species which is shared with Panama and the Central American countries