Dusky tetraka: Songbird feared extinct spotted in Madagascar

The dusky tetraka is a small olive and yellow songbird and is native to Madagascar

Bird watchers are celebrating the sighting of a rare songbird in Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa.

The dusky tetraka hadn't been seen for nearly 25 years and was feared to have become extinct.

So much so that experts had put the small green and yellow bird on a top ten most wanted list of lost birds in 2021.

However, two of the species have recently been spotted by researchers in a rainforest in the north-east of the island.

What happened?

The sighting of the rare bird is believed to be the first one this century

The last documented sighting of dusky tetraka was in 1999 in the rainforests of Madagascar.

The island is one of the world's most diverse biodiversity hotspots with hundreds of unique species.

In fact more than half of Madagascar's bird species are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else on Earth.

However, the island has recently faced biodiversity loss due to factors such as forest destruction, hunting and climate change.

In December, an international team of researchers led by the US-based Peregrine Fund set off on an expedition to try and spot the bird.

They drove for 40 hours and hiked for half-a-day to the remote rainforest where the songbird had last been seen nearly 25 years ago.

Even though the area is officially protected, they discovered that much of the area had been destroyed and converted to farms for vanilla production.

The bird was spotted in a remote part of rainforest in north-east Madagascar

After more than a week, the team finally spotted one hopping through dense undergrowth on the ground near a rocky river.

John Mittermeier from the American Bird Conservancy, who was part of the mission explained: "If dusky tetraka always prefer areas close to rivers, this might help to explain why the species has been overlooked for so long."

The other bird was located by a second team and was found to also spend most of its time in dense vegetation close to a river.

Lily-Arison Rene de Roland from the Peregrine Fund added: "Now that we've found the dusky tetraka and better understand the habitat it lives in, we can look for it in other parts of Madagascar."