List of bird species discovered since 1900


This article describes bird species discovered since 1900. Before the 20th century, and into its early decades, the pace of discovery of new species was fast; during this period, with numerous collecting expeditions into species-rich areas not previously visited by western ornithologists, up to several hundred new species per decade were being described. Many of these were of course not new to the local people, but since then, the pace has slowed, and new species are generally only being found in remote areas, or among cryptic or secretive groups of species. Nonetheless, several tens of species were described for the first time even during the 1990s. Considerable time can pass between discovery and publication, for a number of reasons.
Individual countries particularly rich in species newly described during this period are:
A number of individuals have been particularly prolific in describing new species, such as:

Species described that were not valid species

A number of species described during this period have turned out not to be valid species. There are a number of reasons for this. The following is a list of these species:

The Meise and AMNH reviews

During the 20th century, ornithologists published a number of periodic reviews of newly described species. The purpose of each of these was to collect together in a single paper, for ease of reference, all new species' descriptions published in the period of study, and to present an analysis of these, indicating which represent valid species, and which, for various reasons, do not.
The first such review was published in 1934, by the ornithologist Wilhelm Meise, covering the period 1920 to 1934. Meise presented his review to the Eighth International Ornithological Congress in Oxford. The review listed 600 new species' names described in that period. Meise was of the opinion that between 135 and 200 represented good species. At the ninth IOC in 1938, Meise presented a second paper, listing 23 new species described in the intervening period, plus a further 36 which had been described during 1920–1934 and not covered in the earlier paper. Meise's papers were:
  • Meise, W. Fortschritte der ornithologischen Systematik seit 1920 Proc. VIII Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp. 49–189
  • Meise, W. Exposition de types d'oiseaux nouvellement décrits au Muséum de Paris Proc. IX Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp. 46–51
After the Second World War, ornithologists based at museums in the American Museum of Natural History produced further reviews; again, each of these listed newly described species and presented an analysis, indicating which were and were not good species. To date, six such papers have been compiled; they are, in chronological order:
No further detailed analyses have been published since the 1992 paper, although the British magazine Birding World has published two articles by Oscar van Rootselaar listing newly described species since 1990:
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Discoveries by year

1964

1973

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

Red Sea swallow, Hirundo perdita

1986

Ash-throated antwren, Herpsilochmus parkeri

1987

1991

Roviana rail, Gallirallus rovianae from Roviana, Solomon Islands

1995

1997

1998

1999

2000s

See Bird species new to science described in the 2000s.

2010s

See Bird species described in the 2010s.

2020s

See Bird species described in the 2020s.