New Guinea, the largest tropical island, supports a spectacular bird
fauna characterized by cassowaries, megapodes, pigeons, parrots,
kingfishers, and owlet-nightjars, as well as the iconic birds of
paradise and bowerbirds. Of the nearly 800 species of birds recorded
from New Guinea, more than 350 are found nowhere else on Earth. This
comprehensive annotated checklist of distribution, taxonomy, and
systematics of the birds of New Guinea is the first formal review of
this avifauna since Ernst Mayr's Checklist, published in 1941. This
new book brings together all the systematic, taxonomic, and
distributional research conducted on the region's bird families over the
last 70 years.
Bruce Beehler and Thane Pratt provide the scientific foundation for the
names, geographic distributions, and systematic arrangement of New
Guinea's bird fauna. All technical information is annotated and a
geographic gazetteer and bibliography are included. This book is an
ideal complement to the Birds of New Guinea field guide also published
by Princeton, and is an essential technical reference for all scientific
libraries, ornithologists, and those interested in bird
classification.
- The first complete revision of the New Guinea bird fauna since 1941
- Accounts for 75 bird species new to the region
- Includes a geographic gazetteer, bibliography, and explanations of
taxonomic and systematic classifications