For the primary time, scientists have captured photographs of a chicken in Africa that was unseen for almost twenty years.
Known because the Yellow-crested Helmetshrike, the species had been listed as a ‘lost bird’ by the American Bird Conservancy as a result of it had not been noticed in almost 20 years.
Scientists from the University of Texas at El Paso found a small flock of the birds throughout a six-week expedition to a mountain vary in japanese Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“It was a mind-blowing experience to come across these birds. We knew they might be possible here, but I was not prepared for how spectacular and unique they would appear in life,” mentioned UTEP assistant professor Michael Harvey, Ph.D, an ornithologist.
Harvey co-led the expedition with UTEP Professor Eli Greenbaum, Ph.D. They have been joined by ornithologist Matt Brady, in addition to a bunch of Congolese researchers from the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles.
The workforce trekked on foot for 75 miles by means of the depths of the Itombwe Massif mountains, learning birds, amphibians, and reptiles alongside the way in which.
While exploring the cloud forests on the slopes of a mountain, Harvey and Brady stumbled upon the helmetshrike—a placing black chicken with a shiny yellow “helmet.”
In complete, about 18 helmetshrikes appeared in noisy and energetic teams among the many mid-layer of forest vegetation at three websites, throughout the expedition.
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The chicken is endemic to the western slopes of the Albertine Rift of Central Africa, in accordance with Harvey, a area that has been largely inaccessible as a result of battle and safety points, however which has just lately grow to be safer to go to.
“This inspires hope that perhaps the species still has a reasonably healthy population in the remote forests of the region,” Harvey told UTEP News.
With mining, logging, and agriculture making inroads deep into the forests of the Itombwe vary, the workforce is in discussions with different researchers and conservation organizations to launch efforts to guard the helmetshrikes.
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“Right now is a golden opportunity to protect these tropical forests, so that we don’t lose species like the helmetshrike before they are known and studied,” mentioned Harvey.
The expedition, which ran from December 2023 to January 2024, yielded different necessary discoveries.
The herpetology workforce rediscovered the Red-bellied Squeaker Frog (Arthroleptis hematogaster) which had not been seen because the Nineteen Fifties.
This was Greenbaum’s eleventh expedition to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the place he was impressed to put in writing his e book, Emerald Labyrinth: A Scientist’s Adventures in the Jungles of the Congo.
The dean of the College of Science at UTEP hopes these groundbreaking discoveries will illuminate and encourage college students and scientists worldwide.
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