An elusive bird that has not been seen for nearly 20 years is rediscovered and photographed in the Democratic Republic of Congo
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A long-lost bird, the Yellow-crested Helmetshrike, Prionops alberti, has been found and photographed in Africa. According to the American Bird Conservancy, a lost bird is a species that has not been confirmed to exist in the past ten or more years. The yellow-crested helmetshrike, also known as King Albert’s helmetshrike, has not been seen in almost two decades.
The photographs of the helmetshrikes were reviewed and confirmed by ornithologist Cameron Rutt, who leads the Lost Birds project at the American Bird Conservancy.
The discovery came during a six-week expedition to the Itombwe Massif, a mountain range in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. These mountains run along the west shore of the northern part of Lake Tanganyika in the Great Rift Valley, a complex and tectonically active region more than 6,000 kilometers long where the Arabian Peninsula is splitting away from much of the African continent. The Itombwe Massif are cloaked in a vast contiguous montane forest where a rich diversity of wildlife and plants can be found.
“It was a mind-blowing experience to come across these birds,” said expedition co-leader, ornithologist Michael Harvey, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Professor Harvey’s research focuses on avian genomics and evolution.
“We knew they might be possible here, but I was not prepared for how spectacular and unique they would appear in life,” Professor Harvey enthused.
The expedition was co-led by herpetologist Eli Greenbaum, a Director of Biodiversity Collections and Professor at UTEP, where his research expertise is the evolutionary genetics and taxonomy of Central African amphibians and reptiles. The expedition was joined by ornithologist Matt Brady, a former ornithological cartographer who now works with the collections management team at UTEP, and an international group of scientists, including a team of Congolese researchers from the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles.
Between December 2023 and January 2024, the team hiked more than 120 kilometers (75 miles) through the forests of the Itombwe Massif. They studied and photographed birds, amphibians, and reptiles along the way. Professor Harvey and Professor Brady discovered the helmetshrike whilst exploring tropical cloud forests on a mountainside. Professor Harvey and Professor Brady said the striking glossy black birds with a bright lemon-yellow “helmet” were present in “noisy and active groups in the midstory of the forest.”
In total, the team spotted around 18 of these birds at three sites during the expedition. The Yellow-crested Helmetshrike is only found on the western slopes of the Albertine Rift of Central Africa, according to Harvey, a region that has been largely inaccessible due to war and security issues but that has recently become safer to visit.
The bird, a member of taxonomic family Vangidae, is a group of poorly known shrike-like passerines. The Vangas are small- to medium-sized birds that are distributed from Asia to Africa, including Madagascar, where the family originally got its name. Vangas live in forested habitats of Madagascar and from scrub and open woodlands to rainforest in Africa and Asia.
“This inspires hope that perhaps the species still has a reasonably healthy population in the remote forests of the region,” Professor Harvey said.
And yet, despite the remote location, humans are busily destroying this pristine region and its wildlife.
“[M]ining and logging, as well as the clearing of forests for agriculture, are making inroads deep into the forests of the Itombwe range,” Professor Harvey reported. “We are in discussions with other researchers and conservation organizations to further efforts to protect the region’s forests and the helmetshrike.”
“Right now is a golden opportunity to protect these tropical forests so that we don’t lose species like the helmetshrike before they are known and studied,” Professor Harvey pointed out, unable to resist a play on words.
Meanwhile, the herpetology team, led by Professor Greenbaum, also made important discoveries. Probably the most notable was their rediscovery of the Red-bellied Squeaker Frog, Arthroleptis hematogaster, which had not been seen since the 1950s. The rediscovery of this tiny frog was confirmed by herpetologist David Blackburn, a professor at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History, who was not part of the expedition.
“UTEP’s global impact is showcased through not just the accomplishments of its graduates but also through groundbreaking and captivating discoveries, exemplified here by the contributions of Drs. Greenbaum and Harvey,” said Robert Kirken, Professor and Dean of UTEP’s College of Science, who also was not part of the expedition.
“I hope this discovery illuminates and inspires students and scientists worldwide.”
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