New Bird Discovered in India

Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 12th, 2006

New Bird

New Multicolored Bird Found in India

September 12, 2006

A new bird species has been found in India, the first time such a discovery has been made here in more than 50 years, an astronomer and keen bird watcher said Tuesday.

The multicolored bird (Bugun liocichla) was spotted in May 2006, in the remote Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh near the border with China, said Ramana Athreya, a member of Mumbai’s Natural History Society.

Athreya, who found the bird, named it after the Bugun tribe, which lives in the area. The bird has a black cap, a bright yellow patch around the eyes and yellow, crimson, black and white patches on the wings, he told The Associated Press.

Birdlife International, a global alliance of conservation organizations, described it on its Web site Tuesday as “the most sensational ornithological discovery in India for more than half a century.”

Athreya caught two of the species, but released them after making detailed notes and taking photographs – and keeping feathers that had worked loose in his net.

“We thought the bird was just too rare for one to be killed,” Athreya said.

“With today’s modern technology, we could gather all the information we needed to confirm it as a new species. We took feathers and photographs and recorded the bird’s songs,” he said.

Though the bird was discovered in May, the news was kept under wraps until it was confirmed that it was a new species.

Athreya said he had first briefly spotted the bird in 1995. “But it was only this year I had a sufficiently good look that we could move into the matter.”

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


8 Responses to “New Bird Discovered in India”

  1. planettom responds:

    Beautiful specimen. My dad introduced me to bird watching at an early age. I tend to appreciate it more as I get older. Birds truly are beautiful creatures. I still hope to catch a glimpse of a possible thunder-bird one day. 😉

    The Bugun above, reminds me of a warbler, but hard to make out the size.

    Nice find, and congrats to Athreya.

  2. shumway10973 responds:

    beatiful! What a week for cryptids. First we find a living fossil in a hairy rhino and now this beauty above. So, what is this bird related to? What size it is? We need to know more.

  3. planettom responds:

    Shum, there is more information at the Birdlife International website.

  4. crypto_randz responds:

    That really is a beautiful specimen, i live in connecticut and right by my home i have seen some good size hawks flying above, i havent never seen hawks that large, last week i was looking out the window i saw this hawk circling and hovering above probablly going after prey, it was pretty good size alittle more than medium size.

  5. crypto_randz responds:

    That really is a beautiful specimen, I live in connecticut and right by my home I have seen some good size hawks flying above. I have never seen hawks that large. Last week I was looking out the window I saw this hawk circling and hovering above probably going after prey, it was pretty good size, a little more than medium size.

  6. youcantryreachingme responds:

    Beautiful bird, and fantastic news.

    Again – harkening back to your recent article about what constitutes a “new species”… in this case the discoverer first saw it over ten years ago before being able to confirm it as a new species this year.

    Anyone who’d known about it since 1995 and looked for it in the intervening years could really have laid claim to the ‘cryptozoologist’ title – the study of hidden animals.

    It’s a shame the photographer used a flash; I’d have loved to see it’s colours in natural sunlight. Even so – look at those wing tips.

    The Birdlife International website that planettom linked to (above) makes an interesting note that the feathers – and not a complete specimen – were used as the species holotype.

    Commendation to the discoverers for releasing the bird alive! 🙂

  7. kittenz responds:

    How wonderful to read about the discovery of a new species instead of the demise of an existing one!

  8. twblack responds:

    What a cool looking bird.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

|Top | Content|


Connect with Cryptomundo

Cryptomundo FaceBook Cryptomundo Twitter Cryptomundo Instagram Cryptomundo Pinterest

Advertisers



Creatureplica Fouke Monster Sybilla Irwin



Advertisement

|Top | FarBar|



Attention: This is the end of the usable page!
The images below are preloaded standbys only.
This is helpful to those with slower Internet connections.