The ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), long suspected to be extinct, has been rediscovered in the Big Woods region of eastern Arkansas. Visual encounters during 2004 and 2005, and analysis of a video clip from April 2004, confirm the existence of at least one male. Acoustic signatures consistent with Campephilus display drums also have been heard from the region. Extensive efforts to find birds away from the primary encounter site remain unsuccessful, but potential habitat for a thinly distributed source population is vast (over 220,000 hectares).
Claims that the bird in the Luneau video is a normal pileated woodpecker are based on misrepresentations of a pileated's underwing pattern, interpretation of video artifacts as plumage pattern, and inaccurate models of takeoff and flight behavior. These claims are contradicted by experimental data and fail to explain evidence in the Luneau video of white dorsal plumage, distinctive flight behavior, and a perched woodpecker with white upper parts. S ince obtaining the Luneau video (1), we have treated the southern pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus pileatus) as the null hypothesis for the bird_s identity. We analyzed 56 videos of pileated woodpeckers launching and flying, and we tested the hypothesis experimentally with models. Numerous features of the bird differ substantially from those of the pileated woodpecker and match the ivorybilled woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), forcing us to reject the null hypothesis. We address the main points of Sibley et al. (2) here and present a comprehensive analysis of the Luneau video elsewhere (3).The case presented by Sibley et al.(2) contains the following problems: (i) It relies on erroneous representation of the underwing of pileated woodpeckers as mostly white with a narrow black rim Efigures 1C and S2 in (2) and recent field guides by the lead author (4)^. Pileated wings have more black than white on the ventral surface Esee supporting online
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