Twenty-nine years after the demise Dr. Salim Ali, the birdman of India, an international group of ornithologists named a newly discovered species after him, thus paying homage to the man who shaped generations of ornithologists and also contributed to the better understanding of birds.

Himalayan Forest Thrush, Zoothera salimalii , thus goes the name of the species, which has been described from northeastern India and adjacent parts. The research team that identified the species included scientists from Sweden, India, China, the U.S., and Russia.

Earlier, a bat species — Salim Ali's fruit bat — that was first collected from Western Ghats region of Theni district, Tamil Nadu, was named after the legendary ornithologist.

The present study was initiated in June 2009 by Per Alström of Uppsala University, Sweden and Shashank Dalvi of the Alumnus of the Post Graduate Program, Wildlife Conservation Society- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, while studying birds at high elevations of Western Arunachal Pradesh. The researchers had discovered that there were two species of Plain-backed Thrush breeding in sympathy in Arunachal Pradesh, India. These were completely “segregated by elevation and habitat, one occurring in mostly coniferous forest up to the upper tree limit and the other in alpine habitats above the tree limit. Their songs were strikingly different, although no definite morphological differences were detected in the field.”

The research findings were published in Avian Research .

According to the researchers, “it was realised that what was considered as a single species, the Plain-backed Thrush Zoothera mollissima , was in fact two different species in northeastern India. While the Plain-backed Thrush in the coniferous and mixed forest had a rather musical song, those individuals found in the same region, but on bare rocky habitats above the tree-line had a much harsher, scratchier, unmusical song.”

The studies of “specimens from 15 museums in seven countries revealed consistent differences in plumage and structure between birds from these two populations. It was confirmed that the species breeding in the forests of the eastern Himalayas had no scientific name. Later, the new species was named as Himalayan Forest Thrush Zoothera salimalii . The high-elevation Plain-backed Thrush is now renamed as Alpine Thrush while it retains the scientific name of Zoothera mollissima ,” said a communication.

The analysis of plumage, structure, song, DNA and ecology from throughout the range of the Plain-backed Thrush revealed that a third species was present in central China, which was already known. This was treated as a subspecies of Plain-backed Thrush and was called as Sichuan Forest Thrush. The song of the Sichuan Forest Thrush was found to be even more musical than the song of the Himalayan Forest Thrush, the communication said.