A Rare “Lost Bird” Was Feared Extinct. Texas Scientists Just Found It in the Congo.

WHO: University of Texas at El Paso scientists Eli Greenbaum, Michael Harvey, and Matthew L. Brady, along with Congolese researchers Chifundera Kusamba, Robert Kizungu Byamana, Chance Bahati Muhigirwa, Mwenebatu Aristote, and Wandege Muninga.WHAT: A six-week expedition to the Itombwe Mountains in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during which the joint Texan-Congolese team discovered two rare species—a frog and a bird—that had not been spotted in the wild in decades. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Both species were feared to be extinct. The red-bellied squeaker frog, Arthroleptis hematogaster, had not been seen since the 1950s, and the last-recorded sighting of the yellow-crested helmetshrike, Prionops alberti, was almost two decades ago. During their six-week expedition through the cloud forests on the mountain slopes, researchers were able not only to…

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