The Guardian: “The coppery thorntail and New Caledonian lorikeet are among the 126 birds “lost” to science, having not been seen for a decade or more, according to the most comprehensive list of missing species composed to date. The new tally is based on millions of records collected by enthusiastic birders and amateur scientists documenting wildlife in some of the planet’s most remote locations. To be part of the dataset, the bird must not have a recorded sighting in at least a decade, and not be assessed as extinct or extinct in the wild by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. “Figuring out why these birds have become lost and then trying to find them can feel like a detective story,” said John C Mittermeier, the director of the Search for Lost Birds at American Bird Conservancy, which has created the dataset alongside BirdLife International and Re:wild. The authors hope that releasing the list will encourage people to come forward with new sightings of some of the lost birds and spur conservation efforts. “While some of the species on the list will be incredibly challenging or maybe even impossible to find, others might reveal themselves relatively quickly if people get to the right places,” Mittermeier said. Many of these “lost” birds live in the tropics, particularly on small islands and in mountainous areas. Fifty-six lost birds are from Oceania, followed by Africa with 31 and Asia with 27. The longest-lost bird is the white-tailed tityra, which has not been seen in 195 years. It is known from a single specimen collected from Porto Velho in Brazil in 1829, although there was one possible sighting in 2006…”