A distinctive new species of flowerpecker (Passeriformes: Dicaeidae) from Borneo

Abstract

The enigmatic 'Spectacled Flowerpecker'-a probable new bird species from the island of Borneo-was first sighted in the Danum Valley of Sabah, Malaysia in 2009. However, the absence of a holotype specimen has prevented its formal scientific description. Since then only a handful of reports from widely disparate localities across the island have emerged, all from lowland sites and often in close association with fruiting mistletoe. Here, we report the long-awaited capture of a specimen of this putative new species and confirm its morphological and molecular distinctiveness as a novel species in the genus Dicaeum.

Birds and barriers: present and past seas are dominant correlates of avian turnover in the Indo-Australian Archipelago

“…Second, avian taxonomy in the IAA is still changing. Species in this region continue to be described either through de novo discovery (Saucier et al 2019, Irham et al 2022 or through populations of widespread species being taxonomically elevated to range-restricted subspecies or species rank (Rheindt et al 2020). Finally, we also acknowledge that our dataset relies on the contemporary definition of each area/island and that our current presence/absence data may not reflect historical distributions.…”