Yet another rare discovery of a new genus of living birds – with less than one announced globally per year – has been made on a South Pacific island. It is the discovery of a never-before-known frogmouth bird genus.
Hats off to the University of Florida scientists for spotting the first frogmouth at the Solomon Islands in more than 100 years to everyone’s surprise! David Steadman, an ornithologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History said,
This discovery underscores that birds on remote Pacific islands are still poorly known, scientifically speaking. Without the help of local hunters, we probably would have overlooked the frogmouth.
This bird was misclassified as an Australian Marbled Frogmouth subspecies originally. It’s categorizing as Podargus ocellatus, was a blunder, with its unfortunately going unnoticed for not days or just years, but decades! It was only in 1998, after a collecting trip was led by Kratter, the bird could be catapulted as the only museum specimen in the world. Housed at the Florida Museum, the bird has an associated skin and skeleton.
Oops! You must be pondering on it’s, such a bizarre name! Yes, these predatory birds – feeding on insects, rodents, small birds and even frogs – are named as “frogmouth” for their frog’s mouth-resembling beak, which are strikingly wide and strong.
If you see once, you would definitely agree that their beaks resemble none of that of other birds in the world.