February
18, 2009—A rare quail from the Philippineswas
photographed for the first time before being
sold as food at a poultry market, experts say.
Found
only on the island of Luzon, Worcester's
buttonquail was known solely through drawings
based on dated museum specimens collected
several decades ago.
Scientists
had suspected the species—listed as "data
deficient" on the International Union for
Conservation of Nature's 2008 Red List—was
extinct.
(See
related bird photo: "Rare
'Smiling' Bird Photographed in Colombia.")
A
TV crew documented the live bird in the market
(above) before it was sold in January, according
to the Agence France-Press news agency.
Michael
Lu, president of the Wild Bird Club of the
Philippines, told AFP the bird's
demise should inspire a "local
consciousness" about the region's
threatened wildlife.
"What
if this was the last of its species?" Lu
said.
However,
the buttonquail is from a "notoriously
cryptic and unobtrusive family of birds,"
according to the nonprofit Birdlife
International, so the species may survive
undetected in other regions.
—Christine
Dell'Amore
Photograph courtesy Arnel B. Telesforo
