Trois ornithologues nous parlent de la redécouverte de la Corneille des Banggai

Known to science only by two specimens described in 1900, the Banggai Crow Corvus unicolor was believed by many to be extinct until Indonesian biologists, Mochamad Indrawan of the University of Indonesia, chair of the Indonesian Ornithologists’ Union, assisted by collaborator Yunus Masala and by the Celebes Bird Club, finally secured two new specimens on Peleng Island in 2007. Pamela Rasmussen, a Michigan State University assistant professor of zoology and renowned species sleuth, provided conclusive verification. An ornithologist who specializes on the birds of southern Asia, Rasmussen studied the two century-old specimens known as Corvus unicolor in New York’s American Museum of Natural History. She compared them to the new crow specimens in Indonesia’s national museum, to lay to rest lingering speculation that they were merely a subspecies of a different crow, the more common slender-billed crow, Corvus enca, also is found in the Banggai Islands.
Before Indrawan and collaborators could publish their findings confirming the crow’s identity, other birdwatchers, including Philippe Verbelen, photographed and recorded Banggai crows in the mountains of Peleng.
We interviewed Mochamad Indrawan, Pamela Rasmussen and Philippe Verbelen about this event.