A ‘bonanza’ of new bird species was found on remote Indonesian islands
It’s a veritable bevy of birds: Ten songbirds hailing from a cluster of small Indonesian islands near Sulawesi have officially joined the scientific record. Typically, only five or six new bird species are described each year across the globe. So the discovery of five new species and five new subspecies, characterized in the Jan. 10 issue of Science, marks a remarkable expansion of bird biodiversity, considering that birds are among the most comprehensively categorized animal groups. But evolutionary biologist Frank Rheindt at the National University of Singapore had an inkling these remote, forested islands with mountain highlands held an unrecognized wealth of bird life. The islands — Taliabu, Peleng and the Togian group — sit in the middle of Wallacea, a geologically and biologically complex region of Southeast Asia. But deep waters separate the islands from the nearest large landmass of Sulawesi, limiting opportunities for many animals to intermingle across the region. This includes tropical forest birds, which rarely venture out from the shady cover...