IBWO: Not Extinct Afterall

According to this story, ivory-billed woodpeckers are not extinct after all. Richard Prum, an ornithologist at Yale University, one of several scientists who had challenged evidence in the most recent rediscovery of the ivory bill, said in an interview that he was now "strongly convinced that there is at least a pair of ivory bills out there."

What changed their minds? Recordings of the birds' calls. Mark Robbins, an ornithologist at the University of Kansas, said the recordings, provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, were "astounding." Of a critical paper that he and Dr. Prum and another scientist had submitted to the Public Library of Science, he said, "It's all moot at this point; the bird's here."

Update: 2 August 2005 nature.com story.


What do they sound like? USFWS 1935 audio recording of the ivory-billed woodpecker.


Linked earlier from this blog, but worth repeating;

Where do they live? Map of IBWO range from TNC.

NASA's satellite photo of the area where the IBWO was rediscovered.


My comment: Because the paper was rushed into publication, the authors were unable to analyze all the audio recordings in time to present them with the other supporting data in the paper. If they had not been rushed, the paper would have presented these sound recording analyses and the resulting ID challenge would have been avoided.