The team of international scientists (from Sweden, China, the US, India and Russia) discovered a new species of bird on the China-India border. It has marked the first discovery in a decade and the fourth since 1949.

The bird has been named Himalayan forest thrush Zoothera salimalii. The scientific name honours the great Indian ornithologist, Salim Ali, in recognition of his contributions to the development of Indian ornithology and nature conservation.

Pamela Rasmussen from Michigan State University in the U.S. said that ” The discovery process for the Himalayan forest thrush began in 2009 when it was realised that what was considered a single species, the plain-backed thrush Zoothera mollissima, was, in fact, two different species in northeastern India.”

During the research in the mountains, the team noticed that thrushes in the forests sang much more musically than those on the rocky peaks. They then discovered physical and genetic differences as well and have now declared the known “plain-backed thrush” to be two distinct species.

The lead researcher Per Alstrom of Uppsala University in Sweden said that “It was an exciting moment when the penny dropped, and we realised that the two different song types from plain-backed thrushes that we first heard in northeast India in 2009, and which were associated with different habitats at different elevations, were given by two different species.”

The team also tested museum specimens of the birds and noticed “consistent differences in plumage and structure between birds.”

“At first, we had no idea how or whether they differed morphologically. We were stunned to find that specimens in museums for over 150 years from the same parts of the Himalayas could readily be divided into two groups based on measurements and plumage,” Pamela Rasmussen of Michigan State University said.

In the last 15 years, on an average, approximately five new species have been discovered annually, mainly in South America.