The black tetraka, a small passerine bird found only in Madagascar, has reared its beak again after a 24-year hiatus, much to the relief of scientists.
The yellow-throated bird was spotted twice during an ornithological mission in a remote region in northeastern Madagascar in December.
After 40 hours of travel and half a day of walking, the team arrived at the locations where this uncommon species was last observed in 1999.
They uncovered a degraded forest that had been mostly turned to vanilla crops despite its protected designation. But, after a few days, the bird was observed jumping in the foliage along a rocky river and photographed.
“If the dusky tetraka prefers areas near rivers, that could explain why it eluded us for so long,” said John Mittermeier, director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Extinct Birds program and a member of the team.
Indeed, “birdwatching in rainforests is all about listening to the calls of birds, so there is a natural tendency to avoid spending time next to noisy rivers,” he explained.
A second team spotted another dusky tetraka spending most of its time in dense vegetation near a river, likely looking for insects and other prey.
“Now that we have found the dark tetraka and have a better understanding of the habitat it lives in, we can search for it in other regions of Madagascar,” said Lily-Arison René de Roland, Madagascar program director. of the Peregrine Fund.
The dusky tetraka (Crossleyia tenebrosa) is one of the ten most endangered bird species on the list, which is managed collaboratively by Re:wild, the American Bird Conservancy, and BirdLife International, all expedition partners.
More than half of Madagascar’s birds, or 115 species, are endemic, meaning they can only be found on Madagascar.
In the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, more than 40 bird species on the island are categorized as endangered.
Due to a lack of data, the dark tetraka cannot be classified.
The main causes of biodiversity loss in Madagascar include forest removal for agricultural purposes, habitat degradation, invasive species, climate change, and hunting.
According to previous research, around 40% of the island’s original forest cover was eaten away between the 1950s and 2000s.