Kuai Technology reported on March 23 that since this year, the Hainan tiger-spotted platypus (jiān), known as “the most mysterious bird in the world” It has appeared in many places in Guangdong and attracted attention: on February 7, it was recorded by an ecological photographer in Bijia Mountain, Qingyuan District, Qingyuan; it recently appeared in the Xingang Provincial Nature Reserve in Heyuan, Guangdong for the first time; on the 22nd, when the staff of the Bijia Mountain Provincial Nature Reserve in Lianshan were patrolling the mountain, they found an injured Hainan tiger striped turtle that was unable to take off. After being confirmed by experts, it was rescued in time and is currently recovering well.
The Hainan tiger tabby is a national first-level protected animal and a unique bird in China. The global wild population is only about 1,000, which is rarer than the giant panda. It is listed as one of the 30 most endangered birds in the world.
Its scientific name comes from the type specimen collected from Wuzhi Mountain in Hainan in 1899. However, there are no exact field records in Hainan Island in the past century. In recent years, it has been mainly monitored in some protected areas in the south.
This medium-sized wading bird is about 54-56 centimeters long. It has black crest feathers on its head, eye-catching white eye stripes around its eyes, dark brown tabby-like feathers on its body, and green metallic luster on its flight feathers. It has a unique and mysterious appearance.
It has high requirements on the living environment. It mainly inhabits ravines and valleys in high mountains and dense forests. It hides at night and seldom calls, and lives alone and hidden. It hides in the valleys and streams of high mountains and dense forests during the day, and only comes out at night to hunt small fish and frogs. Because it is hard to find its traces, there have been very few records in the world in the past century or so, and it is called the "ghost bird" by the ornithological community.
Photographed by Yu Litao, an eco-photography enthusiast, source: Qingxin Release