Edited Image or Real? Black-Browed Babbler Discovered Indonesia for the First Time in 170 Years

For the first time in 170 years, scientists reported a black-browed babbler had been discovered in Indonesia. Detection of the muted black, gray, and chestnut-brown bird reportedly solves a commanding birding guide called one of Indonesian ornithology's great enigmas.

According to ornithologist Panji Gusti Akbar, the lead author of the paper that described the new species, when they got confirmation of the bird's identification, he did a little prayer and bowed down in celebration.

According to The New York Times, initially, ornithologists described black-browed babblers around 1850, observing the species' lone-known specimen collection.

The said specimen was initially mislabeled as having appeared from the island of Java instead of Borneo, stymieing early attempts to identify additional black-browed babblers.

However, even after ornithologists had the geographic mix-up cleared up, no one could locate the bird. It has not helped that customarily; few birders and ornithologists have ventured to Borneo's Indonesian side.

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How the Black-browed Babbler was Discovered

In 2016, that started to change with discovering a bird-watching group in Indonesian Borneo called BW Galeatus. Members of the group have reached out to local residents to teach them about their provinces' avian diversity.

Muhammad Suranto and Muhammad Rizky Fauzan, two of the local men, were expressed curiosity over the black and brown bird's identity they sometimes found flitting around while they were on their trips into the forest in one of Indonesia's provinces on Borneo, South Kalimantan.

In October 2020, Suranto and Fauzan managed to catch one of the birds and sent pictures to one of the members of BW Galeautus, Joko Said Trisiyanto.

The bird-watching group member said he was confused when he received the photos as the bird looked slightly like the Horsfield's babbler, although it did not really fit.

Furthermore, the images more closely matched a black-browed babbler's illustration. This babbler, the new report specified, is listed in the guidebook of Trisiyanto as possibly extinct.

Puzzled, Trisiyanto passed the pictures on to Akbar, who got shocked saying, he started pacing around his house, simply trying to contain his excitement.

Akbar, for his part, forwarded the pictures to other experts, including conservationist Ding Li Yong from the BirdLife International in Singapore, also Britain-based bird group, Oriental Bird Club's regional liaison.

An Initially Unbelievable Image

At first, Yong thought someone was playing a trick and that he was staring at an image edited using a photoshop app, or probably, it was an image of an 'antbird' from Ecuador.

It took the expert a while to come to grips with this image, Yong explained, adding that he admitted having tears in his eye when he realized the photos were legit.

For Indonesian ornithology, this is quite a big deal, said the conservationist, linking the discovery to two extinct bird species and describing them as astonishing as rediscovering a passenger pigeon or Carolina parakeet.

After the identity of the bird was confirmed, Trisiyanto persuaded Suranto and Fauzan to set free the captured animal back into the forest.

He and Akbar expressed hope that they could use the black-browed babbler's discovery in developing greater local interest in nature, not to mention bringing tourism income into the region.