New Chinese Bird Discovery
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 29th, 2009
This photo has been released by Birdtour Asia of a Nonggang babbler (Stachyris nonggangensis). This newly discovered species was photographed in southwestern China’s Guangxi in December 2008. The new species of the fist-sized, babbler bird was found in network of underground caves in China, raising the prospect the country could become a hot spot for other new discoveries, a conservation group said Thursday, January 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Birdtour Asia, James Eaton, HO)
I first posted about this here on June 18, 2008, but there’s been a “new” announcement today. I shall re-visit the discovery, with various new quotations, as I’m sure you’ll be seeing this in various places during the next two days.
“This is exciting evidence that there could be many more interesting discoveries awaiting ornithologists in China,” said Nigel Collar of Birdlife International, which announced the discovery.
Ornithologists Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first spotted the dark brown bird with white specks on its chest in 2005 and have since confirmed its identity as an undescribed species.
“The discovery shows that there are still some birds that haven’t been (identified) yet in China, such a vast territory that is rich in biodiversity,” Zhou said in a statement.
A formal description was published during 2008, in The Auk, which is the quarterly journal of the Virginia-based American Ornithologists’ Union.
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.
