Bird species new to science

This is the parent page for a series of pages listing bird species new to science described since 1900. Prior to the 20th century, and indeed into its early decades, the pace of discovery of new species was fast; during this period, with numerous collecting expeditions into species-rich areas not previously visited by western ornithologists, up to several hundred new species per decade were being described. Since then, the pace has slowed, and new species are generally only being found in remote areas, or among cryptic or secretive groups of species. Nonetheless, several tens of species were described for the first time during the 1990s.

Publication of new species

Places where accounts are published

Publication of accounts of new species has occurred in only a small number of periodicals.

Elapsed time between discovery & publication

Considerable time can pass between discovery and publication, for a number of reasons.

The Meise and AMNH reviews

During the 20th century, ornithologists published a number of periodic reviews of newly described species. The purpose of each of these was to collect together in a single paper, for ease of reference, all new species' descriptions published in the period of study, and to present an analysis of these, indicating which represent valid species, and which, for various reasons, do not (see the section below entitled "New species or not a new species?").

The first such review was published in 1934, by the ornithologist Wilhelm Meise, covering the period 1920 to 1934. Meise presented his review to the Eighth International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in Oxford. The review listed 600 new species' names described in that period. Meise was of the opinion that between 135 and 200 represented good species. At the ninth IOC in 1938, Meise presented a second paper, listing 23 new species described in the intervening period, plus a further 36 which had been described during 1920-1934 and not covered in the earlier paper. Meise's papers were:
* Meise, W. (1934) Fortschritte der ornithologischen Systematik seit 1920 "Proc. VIII Cong. Internat. Ornith." pp49-189
* Meise, W. (1938) Exposition de types d'oiseaux nouvellement décrits au Muséum de Paris "Proc. IX Cong. Internat. Ornith." pp46-51

After the Second World War, ornithologists based at museums in the American Museum of Natural History produced further reviews; again, each of these listed newly-described species and presented an analysis, indicating which were and were not good species. To date, six such papers have been compiled; they are, in chronological order:

* Zimmer, J. T. & E. Mayr (1943) New species of birds described from 1938 to 1941 "Auk" 60(2): 249-262 [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v060n02/p0249-p0262.pdf PDF fulltext]
* Mayr, E. (1957) New species of birds described from 1941 to 1955 "Journal for Ornithology" 98: 22-35
* Mayr, E. (1971) New species of birds described from 1956 to 1965 "J. Ornithol." 112: 302-316
* Mayr, E. & F. Vuilleumier (1983) New species of birds described from 1966 to 1975 "J. Ornithol." 124: 217-232
* Vuilleumier, F. & E. Mayr (1987) New species of birds described from 1976 to 1980 "J. Ornithol." 128: 137-150
* Vuilleumier, François, Mary LeCroy & Ernst Mayr (1992) New species of birds described from 1981 to 1990 "Bull. B.O.C." 112A: 267-309.

No further detailed analyses have been published since the 1992 paper, although the British magazine "Birding World" has published two articles by Oscar van Rootselaar listing newly-described species since 1990:

* van Rootselaar, Oscar (1999) New birds for the World: species discovered during 1980 - 1999 "Birding World" 12: 286-293
* van Rootselaar, Oscar (2002) New birds for the World: species described during 1999 - 2002 "Birding World" 15: 428-431

Books

A comprehensive, extensively-referenced section documenting the discovery of each of the 20th Century's most significant new species of bird is contained within "The Lost Ark: New and Rediscovered Animals of the 20th Century" (HarperCollins: London, 1993 ISBN 0-00-219943-2) by British zoologist and cryptozoologist Dr Karl Shuker, as well as in the expanded, updated 2002 edition of this book, entitled "The New Zoo" (House of Stratus: Thirsk, 2002 ISBN 1-84232-561-2).

New species or not a new species?

A number of species described during this period have turned out not to be valid species. There are a number of reasons for this. The following is a list of these species:
* Cox's Sandpiper
* Mascarene Shearwater
* Bulo Berti Boubou - Laniarius liberatus

Geographic distribution of newly described species

The following table gives the total number of new species per decade for each zoogeographic region:

Individual countries particularly rich in species newly-described during this period are:
* Brazil
* Peru
* Indonesia
* the Philippines

Discoverers

A number of individuals have been particularly prolific in describing new species.

Notable among these are:
* Paul Coopmans
* Bret Whitney

Decade by decade