New species of owl discovered in the rainforests of Príncipe Island, Central Africa
A new species of owl has just been described from Príncipe Island, Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe. This relevant finding was featured in national and international media.
The new owl species was described in the open-access journal ZooKeys based on multiple lines of evidence such as morphology, plumage colour and pattern, vocalisations, and genetics. Data was gathered and processed by an international team led by Martim Melo (CIBIO-BIOPOLIS and Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto), Bárbara Freitas (CIBIO-BIOPOLIS and the Spanish National Museum of Natural Sciences) and Angelica Crottini (CIBIO-BIOPOLIS).
The results of extensive field surveys, published in Bird Conservation International, led researchers to recommend that this newly described species be listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Monitoring the population will now be essential to get more precise estimates of its size and follow its trends. For this purpose, the research team has successfully designed and tested a survey protocol relying on the deployment of automatic recording units and AI to retrieve the data from them.
To see some examples of this news please click on the links below:
"New species of owl with unique call discovered in Central Africa” | Independent | November 01, 2022
"New species of owl discovered - and it could go straight on the red list” | Sky News | November 01, 2022
"New owl species found—and it has a haunting screech” | National Geographic | November 01, 2022
"Mysterious new owl species discovered on rainforest coast with a distinctive hoot” | Mirror | November 01, 2022
"New species of owl discovered in the rainforests of Príncipe Island, Central Africa” | Pensoft | November 01, 2022
"New species of owl discovered in the rainforests of Príncipe Island, Central Africa” | Pensoft | November 01, 2022
"Martim Melo passou anos a ouvir um canto único. Agora, descreve nova espécie de mocho” | Público | Novembro 01, 2022
"Investigadores descrevem nova espécie de mocho nas florestas da Ilha do Príncipe” | TVI Notícias | Novembro 01, 2022
"Investigadores do CIBIO-InBIO/ descrevem nova espécie de mocho” | Notícias UP | Novembro 01, 2022