New Bird Discovered in Colombia, South America

Yariguíes Brush-Finch

Bogota, Colombia - A multicoloured bird with reddish-brown and black eyes has been discovered as a new sub-species in a Colombian cloud forest accessible only by helicopter, scientists say.

The fist-sized yellow and black Yariguíes Brush-Finch, topped with an orange plume, was found by a Colombian-English ProAves Foundation team high atop the country's eastern Andean range in Santander province. The bird was named after an Indian tribe that once lived in the nature reserve where it was found.

Over the past three years researchers Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas have regularly hiked into the remote Andes forests to help document avian species diversity. Donegan and Huertas describe finding a bird that differs from other known Brush-Finches because it has a solid black back and no white markings on its wings. The description was published in the June issue of the scientific journal Bulletin of the British Ornithologists Club (Vol. 126: June 2006).

According to the popular listing program, Birder's Diary, there are 27 known species of Brush-Finches in the world (all found in South America). This new taxon is a sub-species of the Yellow-breasted Brush-Finch, rather than a full species. The Yellow-breasted Brush-Finch is found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.