After a 24-year game of hide-and-seek, the dusky tetraka, a small species of sparrow found only in Madagascar, has once again raised its beak, much to the relief of the scientific community.
The yellow-throated bird was sighted twice in December during an ornithological mission in a remote forest in northeastern Madagascar.
After a 40-hour drive and half a day’s walk, the team made their way to the sites where this rare species was last seen in 1999.
There they discovered a forest in poor condition that, despite its protected status, has been largely converted into vanilla plantations. But after a few days, the bird was spotted hopping through the undergrowth near a rocky river and caught on camera.
“If the dusky tetraka prefers areas near rivers, that could explain why it has eluded us for so long,” said John Mittermeier, director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Extinct Birds program and a member of the team.
In fact, “birdwatching in the rainforests is all about listening to the birds call, so there’s 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 in search of insects and other prey.
“Now that we have found the black tetraka and better understand the habitat in which it lives, we can look for it in other regions of Madagascar,” said Lily-Arison René de Roland, Peregrine Fund’s Madagascar program director.
The black tetra (Crossleyia tenebrosa) is one of the top ten most wanted extinct bird species, a list maintained jointly by Re:wild, American Bird Conservancy and BirdLife International, all expedition partners.
More than half of Madagascar’s birds, or about 115 species, are endemic, meaning they are not found anywhere else.
More than 40 bird species on the island are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
The dusky tetraka is not classified due to lack of data.
The main causes of biodiversity loss in Madagascar are the destruction of forests to make way for agriculture, habitat destruction, invasive species, climate change and hunting.
According to previous research, between the 1950s and 2000s, around 40% of the island’s original forest cover was eroded.