Another amazing news of discovery awaits here...The stuff was published at ScienceDaily on February 8, 2009. A new species of rare bird has been discovered very recently. Researchers call it a "babbler", as the bird makes loud, babbling cry. This new species of bird has been discovered in the Guangxi province in south-west China, located very close to the border with Vietnam. In the honor of the reserve at which it was discovered, the scientists named the bird Nonggang Babbler Stachyris nonggangensis. The Nonggang Babbler has been found to have a close resemblance with Sooty Babbler S. herberti, and the researchers concluded that this new species is closely related to Sooty Babbler S. herberti. The Nonggang Babbler is a bit larger than Sooty Babbler, and has white crescent patches right behind the ear coverts and dark spots on the throat and upper region of breast.
Until 2005 this beautiful rare bird species hadn't been sighted, and the ornithologists, Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu from Guangxi University were the first ones to identify this amazing babbler as an un-described taxon in the year 2006. A detailed informative copy had been published in an edition of ornithological journal "The Auk" very recently. By general behavior, the Nonggang Babbler resembles a wren-babbler of the genus Napothera, says the ornithologists. The babbler in survey prefers running to flying, rather than flying off directly from motionlessness. This new species of babbler has been found to be investing most of its time on the ground, foraging for insects under the fallen leaves and between pebbles, which is interestingly in contrast to other closely-related babblers that hardly come on the ground. The nesting habits of Nonggang babblers have not yet been traced, because no nests have been found, although around 100 pairs of the birds have been observed in Nonggang.
Ornithologists, Zhou Fang said: "I have been studying birds in the region since the 1970s but I had never seen it before. Their habitat in the reserve is protected, but as they could also exist in the karst rainforest outside the reserve, logging and burning wood to make charcoal pose a threat to their wider habitat." He continued, "The limestone area in south-western Guangxi is part of the Indo-Burma global biodiversity hot spot and the south-east Chinese Mountains Endemic Bird Area, and is one of the most typical tropical karst regions in the world. The fragility of the karst ecosystem and its destruction by people pose great threats to the bird's existence. Therefore, research and conservation of the birds in this habitat is very urgent".
This has been an real exciting discovery; there can be more amazing discoveries awaiting ornithologists in China. This was what Dr Nigel Collar, the Leventis Fellow in Conservation biology at BirdLife International thought.
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