Nina Foster / 9 Jul 2025 / Nechisar Nightjar
Thirty years ago, researchers first described what would become one of the most fascinating targets of the Search for Lost Birds: the Nechisar Nightjar, a new species evidenced by nothing more than a single wing. But a recent study suggests that this enigmatic bird, once deemed “the least-known bird species in the world,” is not a distinct species after all.
The Wing that Set the World Aflutter
Around midnight on September 3, 1990, a team of British and Ethiopian scientists were surveying the Nechisar Plains of southern Ethiopia when a roadside carcass caught their attention. “In a completely treeless area, a decomposing road corpse, perhaps a few days to a week old, was found partly submerged in soil in a vehicle track,” they later recounted. “Several feathers, including the tail, blew away as soon as they were freed from the earth, but a wing was salvaged in good condition.”
The wing, which now resides in the Natural History Museum in Tring, United Kingdom, was larger than that of any nightjar species found in the area. Among other distinctive traits, the rounded, reddish-brown wing had a peculiar white patch on the outer primaries. The wildlife surveyors compared their discovery to museum specimens of other known African nightjars, but none matched its size and plumage features. In 1995, they published a paper assigning the remains to a new species. The second half of the bird’s scientific name, Caprimulgus solala, is Latin for “only a wing.”
Despite hundreds of hours of nocturnal surveys and several expeditions in search of the Nechisar Nightjar, there have been no confirmed sightings of the bird since the wing was pried from the vehicle track. Given its isolated origin and lack of additional evidence, the species was presumed rare and range restricted. In 2000, the IUCN Red List declared the nightjar Vulnerable due to its small range and conservation concerns in the Nechisar Plains, including agricultural expansion and the rapid clearance of trees for fuel and construction material.
As time passed without rediscovery, the validity of the taxon was called into question. Some wondered whether the lost bird was a hybrid, or if it could be a variant of a known species. Afrotropical nightjars often exhibit intraspecific variation in plumage, and the extent of this variation is poorly understood in some species.
Finding a Lost Bird in the Lab
On April 13, 2025, University of Aberdeen researchers Thomas J. Shannon and J. Martin Collinson and the Natural History Museum’s Senior Curator of Birds, Hein van Grouw, released a preprint publication aimed at resolving these taxonomic uncertainties. Through molecular and morphological analyses, they concluded that the Nechisar Nightjar is a hybrid.
The authors of the study extracted and sequenced genetic material from the skin and internal muscle tissue of the Nechisar wing and compared it with samples from 53 other Afrotropical nightjars. Their analysis identified the Standard-winged Nightjar as the maternal parent of the lost bird, while the paternal parent was likely an unsampled nightjar species. Lacking genetic information for the father, the researchers decided to analyze the morphology and plumage of nightjars for which DNA sequences were unavailable. They narrowed the roster to a single plausible paternal candidate: the Freckled Nightjar, which matched all morphological criteria.
Shannon, Van Grouw, and Collinson are attempting to source genetic material from the Freckled Nightjar to confirm their findings. Their paper has yet to undergo peer review, but the authors are confident that the lost bird is in fact a hybrid.
The Nechisar Nightjar may not be a distinct species, but its discovery still holds great value for ornithological research. Hybridization is common in some birds, but it is rarely, if ever, known to occur in nightjars. “It is an exceptional discovery. This would, we believe, represent the first confirmed hybridization event within Old World nightjars,” wrote Shannon and colleagues.
Provided that the hybrid origin of the Nechisar Nightjar is confirmed when the new study passes peer review, it will then be up to the relevant taxonomic authorities to determine whether the nightjar should be removed as a species. If it is, the lost Nechisar Nightjar will have been “found” — not by photographs, sound recordings, or physical documentation, but by the resolution of its taxonomic designation. Settling taxonomic disputes is a crucial part of preserving and protecting biodiversity, allowing researchers and conservationists to better allocate their time and resources.
“Conservation is directed by knowledge. Scarce resources must be directed to the most pressing needs, so taxonomy is a critical building block of species conservation efforts,” said Barney Long, Senior Director of Conservation Strategies at Re:wild. “Whether it is an invalid species, as is probably the case of the Nechisar Nightjar, or a group of cryptic species hiding behind a single species name, we need good science so we can allocate the correct resources to the correct conservation needs.”
The Nechisar Nightjar is not the only lost bird whose taxonomic status has been reevaluated using molecular methods. The Bogotá Sunangel and Hooded Seedeater were both once considered lost birds before molecular tests of the specimens revealed that neither is a valid species. The results can also go the other direction. The Negros Fruit-Dove, for instance, was described from a single specimen collected in the Philippines in 1953 before disappearing from the scientific record. Last year, researchers analyzed DNA from the original specimen, confirming the bird’s status as a distinct species.
While the status of the Nechisar Nightjar may soon be resolved, there are other species remaining on the lost birds list that would benefit from similar studies and clarifications, among them the Guanacaste Hummingbird, Turquoise-throated Puffleg, and White-chested Tinkerbird. Solving these mysteries highlights the importance of museum collections and molecular analyses in bird conservation.
“It’s nice to find the truth, but it might be a bit disappointing for those hoping to rediscover the Nechisar Nightjar,” Van Grouw reflected. “On a more positive note, at least there’s not a species going extinct, because it was not a species in the first place.”
Nina Foster is a science communication specialist with interests in ornithology, forest ecology, and sustainable agriculture. She holds a BA in English literature with a minor in integrative biology from Harvard University and is currently the Post-baccalaureate Fellow in Plant Humanities at Dumbarton Oaks.