vory-billed woodpecker flies back from the dead

EARTH 28 April 2005

By Andy Coghlan

New Scientist Default Image — The ivory-billed woodpecker was thought to have been extinct for 50 years
(Image&colon; John A Ruthven)

For the world of ornithology, it is the equivalent of Elvis being found alive and kicking.

Because, far from being extinct for at least 50 years, the ivory-billed woodpecker Campephilus principalis has been spotted in the “Big Woods” region of eastern Arkansas, US. “This is not any old bird – it’s America’s largest woodpecker and it’s legendary,” says John Fitzpatrick of Cornell University, and head of a year-long expedition to corroborate initial sightings of the species in February 2004.

The definitive evidence is 4 seconds of blurry video captured by the camcorder of David Luneau of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. It was shot at 1540 local time on 25 April as he scoured the area in his kayak.

“A large black and white woodpecker flew off a tree,” says Luneau. But not until the footage had been thoroughly analysed did confirmation materialise.

“It has all the necessary ingredients for definitive identification,” says Fitzpatrick. His team’s paper in Science describes five visible features which distinguish it from the pileated woodpecker, the only other species it could possibly have been.

The researchers accept that all the sightings may be of the same bird, but are hopeful that more may be out there. At least one breeding pair must have survived into the late 1990s or beyond to produce the bird seen – they live 15 to 20 years at most.

If there are “mated pairs” out there, the conditions for breeding in the expansive southern forests of the Mississippi River basin are probably improving by the day as the forests recover from now-abandoned logging operations. “The worst for this bird has passed,” says Fitzpatrick.

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1114103)