The famous bird dodo rotund, that lives on the ground and is not afraid of humans, which is a great danger, became an icon of extinction when it disappeared from the island of Mauricio and Earth in the 17th century, shortly after Dutch settlers first found it.
Now, Brazilian ornithologists claim to have discovered an analogue of the dodo in the remote Amazon:
he strain with a slate mask, a chicken-like bird that shows total indifference towards people.
Researchers are seeking the disappearance of the dodo to prevent the tinamou from suffering the same fate.
The comparison with the dodo was “scientifically accurate,” said Luis Morais, a doctoral student in zoology at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro and lead author of the article announcing the find, published Tuesday in the journal Zootaxa.
“The behavior of the bird reflects the historical accounts of the extinct dodo, and its risk of extinction is equally real.
Discovered in the remote Serra do Divisorin western Brazil, the slaty-masked tinamou looks, sings, and behaves strikingly different from any known relative.
Most tinamous are shy and mysterious birds, with a coloration that allows them to blend in with their surroundings.
The slaty-masked tinamous, on the other hand, sports intense cinnamon-reddish plumage with a dark stripe above the eyes, hence the name “masked“.
Down
The most unusual thing is his clueless behavior.
Morais’ team spent three years trying to spot the bird, after first spotting it in October 2021 in Acre, Brazil.
But once she revealed herself, she was remarkably tame, wandering calmly through the undergrowth and showing no aversion to human presence.
The researchers stayed stunned when some birds approached them on several occasions.
Their vocalizations are equally strange:
long, evocative calls that spread through the forest with such intensity that they confuse the listener’s distance and orientation.
Tinamuses usually use simple, repetitive and sometimes sad whistles, hoots and trills.
But the complex voice of the slaty-masked tinamou increases in frequency, developing like a pianist that climbs a scale, step by step.
“This bird looks absolutely amazing, and it’s an opera singer,” said Diego Calderón-Franco, a Colombian biologist and expert on neotropical birds, adding a striking adjective for emphasis.
Calderón-Franco was not involved in the research, but reviewed its findings, including audio recordings, before publication.
“It has a unmatched voicea voice that gains energy when singing and bounces off the walls of the valleys where it lives.”
Its scientific name, Tinamu’s Resonancerefers to the shocking echo and disorienting acoustics of their singing.
It is believed to be the first new species of small forest tinamou discovered in 75 years.
“For someone to find a newborn tinamous in the field is crazy,” Calderón-Franco said.
“The fact that this bird has been hidden in a remote corner of Brazil forever is amazing.”
Like the dodo, the slaty-masked tinamou lives on a kind of island:
Its entire known range is limited to a narrow strip of altitude in the Serra do Divisor, an isolated mountain range on the border between Brazil and Peru.
This remote and little-known region, the easternmost extent of the Andes, acts as a “isla celestial” ecological landscape surrounded by the lowlands of the Amazon, with peaks nearly a kilometer high and distinctive plants and animals occupying narrow niches and microhabitats.
There are five other small forest tinamous in the Serra do Divisor, but none live at higher elevations.
The slaty-masked tinamous was detected exclusively above 300 meters.
The narrow altitude distribution places the bird in a precarious ecological situation, extremely vulnerable to increasing external pressures, Morais said.
Analogy aside, the slaty-masked tinamou has no significant evolutionary relationship to the dodo. (The dodo was most closely related to pigeons and turtledoves.)
But the similarities — inhabiting the soil, ignoring humans as potential predators — are striking and worrying, Morais said.
Its total population is estimated at 2000 copies.
“The area is almost uninhabited and virtually intact, but the long-term survival of the species is far from certain,” Morais said.
“Species restricted to narrow altitude ranges are very sensitive to climate change.”
Mountain forests are like apartment buildings, with different animals living on different floors, and species often ascend to higher altitudes as temperatures rise.
Species that reach the top have nowhere to go, a phenomenon scientists call «the escalator to extinction».
Habitat
The slaty-masked tinamou resides in what is practically the upper layer of the Serra do Divisor.
Therefore, changes in land use and human activities represent a great risk, Morais said.
Fires are a particular danger.
The forests of the Serra do Divisor sit on ancient sandstone soils, where a single burn could erase thousands of years of habitat growth and the entire tinamou population.
Other possible human threats include the construction of a proposed highway between Brazil and Peru, as well as a transcontinental railway project which, according to environmentalists, would accelerate the destruction of the Amazon.
The area currently encompasses Brazil’s fourth-largest national park, but the Brazilian government has considered weakening its protected status to allow for greater economic exploitation of the region, and legislation could open the Sierra do Divisor to mining.
“All this makes me think that the species will not have an easy future,” Morais said.
“We are working hard to ensure this is recognized before these policies move forward.”
Diego Mendes, environmental analyst at the Chico Mendes Institute for Conservation and Biodiversity (ICMBio), a government agency responsible for species conservation in Brazil, stated that the agency implemented continuous monitoring and law enforcement actions in the area.
He added that his efforts to control illegal activities helped reduce deforestation in the region by more than 11% by 2025.
In December, Morais’ team will meet with ICMBio to determine the official status of the slaty-masked tinamou and discuss its conservation.
“Mitigation measures will be defined based on scientific evidence obtained in ongoing studies and extinction risk assessment,” Mendes stated in an email.
“The species requires more studies on its distribution and ecology, which will serve as a basis for defining mitigation and conservation measures.”
Expedition
Morais’ team identified the new species through field studies and examination of three specimens.
Their study lacked genetic analysis, essential to better understand the bird’s evolutionary history and its correct taxonomic classification, according to Jessie Williamson, a zoologist at the University of Wyoming specializing in mountain birds, who was not involved in the discovery.
The tinamous are among the families of aves neotropicales less studied; Few studies have addressed its taxonomy in this region.
“This exciting find highlights the importance of Serra do Divisor as one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet,” Williamson said.
“It will be fascinating to see how genetically different T. resonans is from other tinamou species.”
Having evolved without natural predators, the dodo was helpless when Dutch sailors first arrived in Mauritius in 1598.
Sixty-four years later, it was gone, a victim of overexploitation, deforestation, and predation by invasive species.
Of the approximately 30 species of birds native to Mauritius, the 40% are extinct.
Island birds have been responsible for 90% of known bird extinctions since 1600, according to BirdLife Internationala conservation organization.
While the situation for the slaty-masked tinamous is different, the threats it faces are entirely human-caused and therefore not so different.
Scientists estimate that up to 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed or degraded, putting more than 2,000 animal species in danger of extinction.
Human activity is scarce in the bird’s restricted range, but in nearby areas, tinamous are commonly hunted for food by local people.
The slaty-masked tinamous is one of several species endemic to the region that researchers fear are too rare and specialized to withstand external pressures if the area were disturbed.
“Detailed studies on the natural history and ecology of this bird are urgently needed,” Morais said.
“Understanding their environmental needs, population dynamics and sensitivity to habitat changes will be essential to guide conservation strategies and ensure the long-term persistence of the species.”