Undescribed (1 Viewer)

[Papuan birder]

the "Kilombero" Cisticolas

Just got back home from a three week long birdwatching trip to Tanzania. This was only my second visit to this AMAZING country, embarrassing really, but I have already secured a spot on the same tour running again next year:king:

We had a three-day stay in the Kilombero Valley in the south-east at the end of the trip and we were successful in tracking down all three endemics including the still undescribed "Kilombero" and "White-tailed" Cisticolas (both discovered in 1990 I believe). According to our local guide the cisticola of Kilombero is soon to be described, though I was never able to quite figure out whatever he meant both of these species, or if it just the "Kilombero" cisticola.

 

[Richard Klim]

'Caxias Pygmy Tyrant'

On NEOORN today...

possible new Myiornis from Brazil

The text is in portuguese, but in the link below at least you can see photos and videos of an apparently new species of Myiornis from the dry forests of northern Brazil. It's possibly related to M. auricularis from the Atlantic Forest (closest pop c.1000 km away), and indeed it looks very much like M. albiventris from the Andes. Ciro Albano and Luciano Lima - who discovered the bird - are presently working on the case to publish it soon.

http://www.oeco.com.br/convidados-lista/26787-o-maranhao-tem-palmeiras-e-aves-inusitadas

Happy 2013,
v.

Dr. Vítor de Q. Piacentini

Pesquisador Associado/Associate Researcher
Seção de Aves
Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo
Caixa Postal 42494, CEP 04218-970
São Paulo, SP, Brasil
Tel +55 (11) 2065-8148
http://www.ib.usp.br/~lfsilveira

 

[Richard Klim]

Nonggang Babbler

A "Babbler" Stachyris sp in Southern China (HBW 12: 158).

...S. nongganensis
http://www.chinabird.org/news/Nonggang_Babbler.pdf [Zhou & Jiang 2008]

Li, Zhou, Lu, Jiang, Yang & Yu (in press). Distribution, habitat and status of the new species Nonggang Babbler Stachyris nonggangensis. BCI. [abstract]

BirdLife: Species factsheet.

 

[Millionaire-ess]

A New Owl Species of the Genus Otus (Aves: Strigidae) from Lombok, Indonesia

Happy Valentines day (east of Greenwich so far). Please note that no millionaires were harmed (or encountered) during preparation of this article...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0053712

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...-owl-new-owl-species-discovered-in-indonesia/

Nice one! I'd heard rumours of this some while ago. Sometimes researchers are trying to pull together large volumes of data on closely related taxa to see where a species fits within the genus and that can take time. That said where a species is common in a given location there seems little value in surpression, other than to preserve the "impact factor" of the publication. That is a big deal to some researchers and their funding streams. I look forward to the decription of "Otus anothermillionairensis" in due course!

cheers, a

 

[njlarsen]

Millionaire-ess, welcome to birdforum!

Niels

 

[COLOMBIA Birding]

Megascops millionaire-donoresi to come soon from Colombia!

 

[lewis20126]

Megascops millionaire-donoresi to come soon from Colombia!

I'm sure that will be a fitting name and well deserved, fingers crossed! Fabulous that the "new" (newly recognised) Otus on Lombok is named after one of the original discoverers however.

cheers, alan

 

[Ficedula]

"During our visits to Lombok, no other scops owls were heard. We obtained no evidence for the presence of O. magicus, despite playback of the latter’s songs at multiple localities in suitable habitat."

so i am going to have to go through my notes to find a record of Otus magicus.

I note he cites my report (ref 42) but says it is available from travellingbirder, which is defunct. my report is still available here.

although i did not have a tape recorder with me then, i did note transcriptions of vocalisations i heard which seem to fit this new owl.

Audio files in WAV format so v large and i cant listen to them with my stoneage equipment, anyone found mp3s of Otus jolandae?

 

[lewis20126]

"During our visits to Lombok, no other scops owls were heard. We obtained no, anyone found mp3s of Otus jolandae?

Why not email Bram D.? He's based in the Philippines most of the time I think. I've got load of recordings of O. magicus from Flores, where they were fairly easy to see in 1992, of course I never visited Lombok, where there "were no endemics"...

cheers, alan

 

[Ficedula]

Armchair tick:smoke: I saw magicus on Halmahera in 1990.

Why not email Bram D.?

not someone i know. i have just noticed that mp3s are available on x-c under 'Lombok' Scops Owl · Otus tax_Lombok, including one of Sangster's recordings.

 

[Richard Klim]

Rinjani Scops Owl

Audio files in WAV format so v large and i cant listen to them with my stoneage equipment, anyone found mp3s of Otus jolandae?

The wav files from Sangster et al 2013 converted to mp3...

 

[Ficedula]

Brilliant, thanks Richard

 

[dnsallen]

Try http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Otus-tax_Lombok
Des

too slow!

 

[Ficedula]

just listened to them, given the limitations of written trascriptions mine seem spot on for S1 & S2.

 

[jurek]

Funny, some years ago I commented on BirdForum that smaller Indonesian islands are likely to have undescribed scops owls - kaboom, somebody checked it!

Congratulations to the discoverers!

 

[MJB]

Happy Valentines day (east of Greenwich so far). Please note that no millionaires were harmed (or encountered) during preparation of this article... http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0053712 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...-owl-new-owl-species-discovered-in-indonesia/

Millionaire-ess,
I second the welcome! Is the Blue Grass restaurant still going in Alice? It was the best possible contrast to weeks of tinned food in the bush!
MJB

 

[lewis20126]

Millionaire-ess,

I assumed this was a typo for Millionaire-less; but then I make a lot of assumptions..

cheers, alan

 

[DMW]

Funny, some years ago I commented on BirdForum that smaller Indonesian islands are likely to have undescribed scops owls - kaboom, somebody checked it!

Jurek, that's a bit like predicting there are likely to be undescribed tapaculos in Peru - not exactly Mystic Meg levels of prescience!

 

[Millionaire-ess]

This article from 2003 by Nigel Collar provides a useful guide to discovering species in Asia:

http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/cns26/njc/Papers/How many Asian birds.PDF

Funny, some years ago I commented on BirdForum that smaller Indonesian islands are likely to have undescribed scops owls - kaboom, somebody checked it!

Congratulations to the discoverers!

 

[Millionaire-ess]

Millionaire-less, would have been a better option.

By the way - the Lombok Owl study had zero funding. One published examination of the average cost of a species description found that it was around $50,000. I would guess that approximately 6-9 months in total was spent on Lombok Owl - field visits, museum visits, analysis and writing for the article; so around $50,000 in-kind [Unpaid] contribution is probably a reasonable ballpark...

I assumed this was a typo for Millionaire-less; but then I make a lot of assumptions..

cheers, alan