Historical changes in number of Endemic birds in Sri Lanka from 1852 to 2006

Abstract

Number of endemic bird species, which is special interest among the wildlife enthusiasts for all thetime, continuously fluctuated in the ornithological history of Sri Lanka,

To clarify the number of endemic species present in Sri Lanka all 1to study the change of this numberin the history of Ornithology in Sri Lanka, systematic literature survey was done. Twenty majorpublications including field guides and checklists that are published from 1854 to 2006 were considered.

The number of endemics has changed from a maximum of 4 7 to a minimum of20 from 1854 to 2006.Sixty two of the present species were endemic at least once in the history although there are only 26species are to be considered as definite endemics at present.

Many of the species considered as endemic to the island were discovered before these publications.On Iy nine species were discovered in or after 1852 but before 1872. And one species was describedvery recently in 2004. However, only 11 species excluding newly discovered Serendib scops owl,have appeared in all these publications as endemics. Four species were discovered in 1870 and 1972and those were in all the publications as endemics after the discovery. Although discovered in 1850,White-faced Starling was added to the list in 1872 and remained continuously. Hence, these 16 speciescan be accepted as endemics without any argument.

Main reasons for changes in numbers are upgrades of existing subspecies and downgrade to subspecieslevel. Six of the present endemic species fluctuated in species and subspecies levels in the history.Another 30 species including 7 proposed endemic species neeJ taxonomic studies since those werechanged between species and subspecies levels.

Sri Lanka Red faced Malkoha was removed twice and Yellow-cared bulbul was also removed oncefrom the endemic list due to unconfirmed sight records from South India. Sri Lanka Wood pigeon wasremoved from the list by Murray (1890) due to misidentification as Nilgiri Wood Pigeon.

Representation of present endemic species in each of the publ ication ranges from 61.54% in Blyth(1852) to 100% in Rasmussen and Anderton (2005). However. second highest percentage (92.31 %)was represented in Legge (1880) and Murray (1890), more than a century ago.