After 130 years of its hide-n-seek with scientists, the wetland bird — large-billed reed-warbler ‘ has been spotted once again at a wastewater treatment plant in Thailand, the Birdlife International informed.
It has been discovered in 1867 in the Sutlej Valley of India, and since then it had not been seen. Thus, little is known about the bird. I6ts being so rare had kicked up debates among scientists on ‘
‘if it represented a true species or was an aberrant individual of a more common species.’
It was on on March 27, 2006, the debate apparently got settled with one of the bird species having being captured
by Philip Round, an ornithologist at Bangkok’s Mahidol University. The bird has been captured at a wastewater treatment center outside Bangkok, according to the conservation organization in Cambridge, England.
Philip Round said in a statement,
Although reed-warblers are generally drab and look very similar, one of the birds I caught that morning struck me as very odd, something about it didn’t quite add up.
Then, it dawned on me. I was probably holding a large-billed reed-warbler,” he said. “I was dumbstruck.
The bird’s photographs and DNA samples sent to the Staffan Bensch of Sweden’s Lund University confirmed Round’s findings. Bensch, who had previously examined this Indian specimen, confirmed that the bird represented a valid species.
Photo Courtesy: AP/Phillip Round/The Wetland Trust, HO