Rare bird finding strengthens case to protect Congo rainforest across borders

Ecologist Jean Semeki and his colleagues were not expecting to find a rare bird while surveying mammals in the Luki Biosphere Reserve in the west of the Democratic Republic of Congo. They had installed camera traps along a forest trail to monitor the reserve's mammals, expecting to capture footage of apes from the reserve's small population of endangered central chimpanzees.

However, when they downloaded the images, they were surprised to see videos of a long-legged bird hopping across the leaf litter. It was a grey-necked picathartes, a large, slender bird with blue and red patches on its bald head. Co-author Hugues Dethier was astonished when he first saw the video and asked his colleague Guillaume Baltus to verify the identification.

Picathartes are known to inhabit rainforests in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo, building their nests in caves and rocky overhangs. However, this is the first time the species has been seen so far south, extending its range by nearly 400 kilometers. The discovery, reported in the journal Ostrich, suggests that conservation efforts should extend to protecting the Congo rainforest across international borders to safeguard the near-threatened species.