The Tribune

A NEW species of hummingbird in the Bahamas has been officially recognised by leading American ornotholgists.

The Inagua Woodstar (Calliphlox lyrura) has been identified in the southern archipelago as a distinct sub-species and can be found in the Inagua National Park in Great Inagua.

The Bahama Woodstar (Calliphlox evelynae) - a member of the Bee Hummingbird group that is native to the Bahamas islands - was originally classified scientifically as two sub-species. One sub-species of the Bahama Woodstar was found throughout the Bahamas and in the Turks and Caicos Islands, with the exception of Great and Little Inagua where the second sub-species occurred. Scientists now say that the birds are completely different species.

The American Ornithologists Union (AOU) has recognised the new species as the Inagua Woodstar, named for its unique, lyre-shaped outer tail feathers.

The discovery of a new species traditionally means travel to and research in remote areas, but this newest species was discovered and researched in the backyards of local homes and porches. Teresa Feo, a doctoral student at Yale University and lead author of the study published in the January issue of the ‘AUK’, a magazine published by the AOU, said: “Much of the fieldwork was conducted sitting at backyard tables of interested birders, holding the recorder in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.”

Although the species are strikingly similar, appearances are deceiving. In the 1800s, the birds were originally labelled as different species, partly on the basis of small differences in their tail feathers, but James Peters put them together as one species in the “Check-List of Birds of the World” published in 1949 .

In 2009, Ms Feo teamed up with ornithologist Dr Christopher Clark from the University of California, Riverside, to study the sounds made by the Bahama Woodstar. “We originally wanted to study the two sub-species simply to capture the diversity of sounds they might produce with their tail feathers,” she said. “And in the course of doing fieldwork it became obvious that they were different … and different more than just normal sub-species.”

The scientists recorded the mechanical sounds made when air runs along male tail feathers during mating display dives. They found that the tail of the adult Inagua Woodstar is more strongly forked than that of the Bahama Woodstar and that the sounds of the former were significantly higher pitched as a result.

The birds have different calling sounds, causing them to only attract their own kind. Additionally, males from the Bahama Woodstar species make the classic hummingbird sounds, while males from the Inagua Woodstar species sound more like wet squishy shoes.

Dr Clark’s team said that populations of evelynae and lyrura diverged genetically sometime between 400,000 and a million years ago.

The Bahamas National Trust, which manages the country’s national park system including the Inagua National Park, said it was “thrilled” at the recent announcement by the AOU of the Inagua Woodstar and encouraged people to plan a visit to see “this beautiful new bird”.