Overview
Our Southern Ecuador tour visits many well-known birding hotspots and lodges in the southern part of this incredible country.
Description
The Jocotoco Antpitta is a rare and poorly known species first discovered in Ecuador in 1997. The name Jocotocois onomatopoeic for the Antpitta’s song and the species name ridgelyi is after Dr Robert Ridgely who discovered the bird.
When world-renowned ornithologist Bob Ridgely heard a distant, but strong hoot, not unlike that of an owl, he stopped in his tracks – this wasn’t a sound he recalled. A couple of seconds later a big bird came crashing out of the undergrowth which he didn’t recognise either. In fact, as he recalls, “It was stunningly different”. It turned out to be a bird previously unknown to science – an entirely new and quite distinctive species of antpitta, whose distinctive call subsequently gave the bird its name.
Lizardo García, El Oro
Ecuador
URL:
http://www.worldlandtrust.org/species/birds/jocotoco-antpitta/