A colorful, fruit-eating bird with a black mask, pale belly, and scarlet breast—never before described by science—has been discovered and named by Cornell University graduates following an expedition to the remote Peruvian Andes.
The Sira Barbet (Capito fitzpatricki) is described in a paper published in the July 2012 issue of The Auk, the official publication of the American Ornithologists’ Union. A painting of the barbet is featured as the issue’s cover illustration.
The new species was discovered during a 2008 expedition led
by Michael G. Harvey, Glenn Seeholzer, and Ben Winger, young
ornithologists who had recently graduated from Cornell at the time.
They
were accompanied by coauthor Daniel Cáceres, a graduate of the
Universidad Nacional de San Agustín in Arequipa, Peru, and local
Ashéninka guides.
The team discovered the barbet on a ridge of montane cloud forest in
the Cerros del Sira range in the eastern Andes.
Steep ridges and deep
river gorges in the Andes produce many isolated habitats and
microclimates that give rise to unique species.
Mike Harvey was first to see the new species on October 8, 2008. “It
was sitting about 60 feet up on a bare branch,” he said. “At first we
thought it was the Scarlet-banded Barbet (Capito wallacei), but the more we looked at it, the more we saw obvious differences in its plumage.”
Though clearly a sister species of the Scarlet-banded Barbet, the Sira Barbet is readily distinguished by differences in color on the bird’s flanks, lower back, and thighs and a wider, darker scarlet breast band. By comparing mitochondrial DNA sequences of the new barbet to DNA sequences of its close relatives in the genus Capito, the team secured genetic evidence that this is indeed a new species in the barbet family (Capitonidae). The genetic work was done by coauthor Jason Weckstein at The Field Museum in Chicago.
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