- by cnn
- 17 Apr 2024
"Near-mythical" is how the ecologist Matthew Herring describes the Australian painted-snipe - one of this continent's rarest birds.
"Some of these terms get thrown around," Herring says, "but they really are."
It is believed there are only about 340 individuals left, but that's not all that makes them rare. Australian painted-snipes exemplify the saying "out of sight, out of mind". Even birdwatchers with decades in the field forget they exist.
"They're a super-sneaky, cover-dependent, mud-loving, waterplant-hiding shorebird," Herring says.
A research project that correlated the evolutionary uniqueness of the world's nearly 10,000 bird species against their conservation status, as a way of prioritising them, placed the Australian painted-snipe at No 29.
"So it's definitely a weird bird," Herring says.
And an elusive one. It ranges across a vast area, from the Murray-Darling Basin to the Kimberley. Sightings are few and far between.
Premier announces changes to long-delayed project
read more