Green Options

Our friends at Zaproot took a new look at Jake Richardson’s article, Extremely Rare Bird Photographed for First Time - Then Eaten.

A species of bird so rare it was thought perhaps to be extinct was captured on video and still images in the Phillipines province of Nueva Vizcaya… right before it was cooked and eaten.

The Worcester’s buttonquail (Turnix worcesteri) lives only in the Phillipines, but had not been seen in many years, and was previously only known through illustration based on dead specimens collected centuries ago. One wild live buttonquail was inadvertently filmed in a mountainous area during the making of a documentary on the traditional methods of bird-trapping in northern Luzon. But neither the local crew nor the bird-trappers at the time of the filming understood how rare the bird was, so it was sold at a poultry market, then cooked and eaten.

The discovery of a species in nature often results in headlines such as “New Species Discovered”. However, what exactly is a new species?

A ‘new’ species would probably be only one that had evolved into something unique very recently, or zapped instantly into existence by the power of God, or created by genetic engineers in a laboratory. Therefore, it appears to be safe to say that there is no such thing as a ‘new’ rat. (Unless one includes politicians).