‘Like Finding a Unicorn’: Researchers Rediscover the Black-Naped Pheasant-Pigeon, a Bird Lost to Science for 140 Years

For more than a century, researchers have been trying to locate the Black-naped Pheasant-Pigeon, a critically-endangered, chicken-sized bird that was last spotted in 1885. But when two scientists visited a remote island off the coast of Papa New Guinea in search of the bird, they got the surprise of their lives: actual video footage of the pigeon, known locally as “Auwo,” captured for the first time in history. “Suddenly I was confronted with this image of what at that time felt like a mythical