They discover a new species of birds in the forests of Papua – Environment – Life

A team of Spanish researchers has discovered a new species of bird, which they have named the Satin Pikabaya, in the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea.

Scientists from National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) From Spain found new species of birds in the mountains of New Guinea and published the results of their research and description of the bird in the journal Ibis.

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The satin pickaxe (Melanocharis citreola) differs from other members of the genus by plumage coloration, morphology, and multiple variations in its genome. They inhabit a well-preserved forest area, feeding mainly on small fruits.

Area New Guinea Where it was found is one of the least explored places in the world and harbors a huge diversity that is still unknown to the scientific community, according to the National Museum of Natural Sciences in a note released last Thursday.

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“Birds are an exception, as they are much better studied than other taxonomic groups such as invertebrates or plants, so finding undescribed species is very difficult.‘, explained Borja Mela, a researcher at the museum. ‘picabayas’ is just second type It was described in New Guinea in the past 80 years, following the description of “Carlota’s Honeycreeper” (Melipotes carolae) found in 2005.

New species captured for two Biological campaigns In 2014 and 2017 to the Lengguru region, on the Isthmus of Bird’s Head, a karst region with rugged terrain and difficult to penetrate due to lack of surface water. The expeditions were organized by the French Research Institute for Development (IRD) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), and led to many discoveries about the region’s animal and plant diversity, both land and sea, according to the museum. In 2014, on the last day of sampling, at an altitude of 1,200 meters in the Kumawa Mountains, scientists picked up a male picapaya, which clearly belongs to an as yet not described species.

From there, a second, longer expedition to the mountains was organized Kumawa in 2017 in order to obtain more data on new species. The scientists spent a month camping at 1,200 meters and got three more individuals, two of them immature males, but no female, so researcher Borja Mila noted that there’s a lot to know about this and other New Guinean birds.

EFE

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