2015-03-07

In the grasslands of Myanmar, a bird was discovered which was long thought to be extinct.

In the South East Asian region, Jerdon’s babbler scientifically known as Chrysomma altirostre had not been seen since July 1941.  The last reported sighting of this bird was in the town of Myitkyo located near the Sittaung River.

In May 2014, researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS), and Wildlife Conservation Society, Myanmar’s Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division found the bird in the abandoned agriculture station during a site survey.

The details of this discovery were published in the recent issue of Birding Asia, the magazine of the Oriental Bird Club.

Colin Poole, director of WCS’s Regional Conservation Hub in Singapore, said, “The degradation of these vast grasslands had led many to consider this subspecies of Jerdon’s babbler extinct.”

“This discovery not only proves that the species still exists in Myanmar but that the habitat can still be found as well. Future work is needed to identify remaining pockets of natural grassland and develop systems for local communities to conserve and benefit from them.”

After the bird’s distinct call hearing, researchers played the recording back which in turn provided them with the sighting of an adult Jerdon’s babbler.  In the time period of 48 hours, many more Jerdon’s babblers were sighted.  The team collected blood samples along with the high quality photographs.

In 1862, T. C. Jerdon, British naturalist, first described the brown small bird having the size of house sparrow.

At the start of the 20th century, the bird was a common species in the grasslands around the commercial capital of the country Yangon. After that its number started to decrease when the grasslands were replaced by the communities and agricultural fields.

From 1960 and onwards, Myanmar’s military dictatorship closed off from the world and shut its doors on the environmentalists who studied animals and birds. But since 2010, the new civilian rule opened the gate for the nature lovers.

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