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In
the Diego Ramirez Islands, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from
southern Chile's Cape Horn, scientists have identified the
Subantarctic rayadito, a 0.035 pound (16 gram) brown bird with
black and yellow bands, and a large beak that is confounding
biologists.
That's because the Subantarctic rayadito, which resembles a
rayadito species that inhabits the forests of southern Patagonia
and nests in trunk cavities, was found "living in a place with
no trees."
"There are no bushes and no woodland species, literally in the
middle of the ocean a forest bird has managed to survive," said
Ricardo Rozzi, an academic from Chile's University of Magallanes
and the University of North Texas and director of the Cape Horn
International Center for Global Change Studies and Biocultural
Conservation (CHIC).
The finding, reported on Friday in the science journal Nature,
was made after a six-year investigation in which the tiny bird
became an "obsession" to researchers, said Rozzi.
One of the researchers, Rodrigo Vasquez, a biologist at the
University of Chile, said that genetic studies confirmed that
the newly discovered species "differs in a mutation from the
rest of the species of the classic rayadito species," in
addition to other differences in form and behavior.
The researchers said they had captured and measured 13
individuals in the island. "The Birds from the Diego Ramirez
population were significantly heavier and larger (with a longer
and wider bill and longer tarsi), but they had a significantly
shorter tail," they said in Nature.
To Rozzi, the species could become "a symbol ... that will
contribute to the knowledge" about the little-known Diego
Ramirez Islands.
(Reporting by Natalia Ramos; Writing by Carolina Pulice; Editing
by Sandra Maler)
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