Three records of the New Britain Thrush (Zoothera talaseae) from Papua New Guinea in the 21st century

Abstract

The endemic New Britain Thrush (Zoothera talaseae) is a poorly known, secretive resident of montane forest on its namesake island in the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea. Here we review all known records of Z. talaseae, describe three observations from 2017, 2024 and 2025, and present the first images of the species in the wild. We recorded a single individual of Z. talaseae on 16 July 2024, on a camera trap in the Whiteman Range, West New Britain Province in a shaded gully at 1040 m elevation. This territory was occupied in October 2025, when an individual was detected by a call characteristic of the genus, and coincides with a mist-net capture from 2017 in the same area. The species has been documented 15 times total, including 11 confirmed records, with three periods since its description where it has gone unobserved for >10 years. We conclude with a discussion of its apparent scarcity, effective survey strategies, and its conservation status. Like congeners, Z. talaseae has very low detectability, and the use of mist nets and camera traps seems to be the only practical way to obtain confirmed records.