A group of scientists found on Florean island, from the Ecuadorian archipelago of the Galapagos, to an endemic land bird that they believed extinct almost two centuries ago, located in the south of the island region, as the Charles Darwin (FCD) foundation announced on Thursday.
The “rediscovery” of the Pachay of Galapagos (laterallus spilonota) brand “The first official record of the species on Florean Island since Charles Darwin documented it for the first time on her visit of 1835”, according to the scientific institution, since there are more recent records of the same in other islands of the archipelago, located in the Pacific Ocean, about a thousand kilometers of the continental coasts of Ecuador.
For the FCD, this rediscovery represents a significant advance for the Floreana restoration project, which had identified the Pachay of Galapagos as one of the 12 locally extinct species for reintroduction.
This finding occurs after, at the end of 2023, the bait dispersion campaign for the eradication of large -scale invasive species was implemented, led by the direction of the Galapagos National Park and the Jocotoco Conservation Foundation, with the support of Island Conservation and other partners.
The campaign successfully eliminated most of the island’s feral cats and rodents.
Small bird In the Galapagos
The Pachay of Galapagos is a small bird that weighs between 35 and 45 grams, with dark gray plumage, brown back, red eyes and fine white motorcycles in the back of the body.
The youth are mostly gray and lack white motorcycles. Classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, it is currently in the Fernandina, Isabela, Pinta, Pinzón, Santa Cruz and Santiago Islands.
It is an elusive bird that usually hides in dense vegetation, such as high grasslands and dense thickets. It emits a variety of vocalizations, including clicks, squeaks and prolonged rattles, and in the past the upper part inhabited and in mangrove coastal areas.
During its most recent annual landslide monitoring expedition on Florean Island, the investigators of the Charles Darwin Foundation and Galapagos National Park recorded the presence of the AVE in three different sites within the Florean transition zone, a grassland covered with guava trees, far from agricultural areas.
The confirmed findings include six acoustic records, two visual sightings and one photograph.
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Constant search
All these sites have been monitored annually since 2015 by the Charles Darwin Foundation and “surprisingly, this is the first time that the species has been registered, after 190 years,” said the institution.
For Birgit Fiesl, principal researcher of the Terrestrial Bird Conservation Program in the FCD, there are two possible explanations for the new record: or the Pachay of Galapagos relied the island, or was never really extinct, but remained without being detected by its extremely low population.
“This last hypothesis is the most likely, since these birds are not good flying and their presence in multiple sites suggests that they have always been there, only in very small numbers,” he said.
For Arturo Izurieta, director of the Galapagos National Park, the finding “demonstrates that ecosystems can recover if they are given the opportunity.”
“The eradication of invasive species has allowed a species that we believed extinct locally again to be part of the surroundings of Floreana,” he said.
Víctor Carrión, islands restoration coordinator for the Jocotoco Galapagos program, noted that “it is very likely that the impact that has been caused in the populations of rodents and feral cats have provided a safer environment for the survival of the Pachay of Galapagos and, potentially, for the increase of its population”.
Scientists will make a genetic sampling to determine whether the finding belongs to a reintroduced lineage or if it is a remaining population that survived without being detected for almost two centuries.
With EFE information.
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