New bird species discovered in Japan for 1st time in 45 years
An international research team, including Japan's Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, announced Wednesday that it has discovered a new bird species in the Tokara Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture, Jiji Press reports.
The new bird, named the Tokara Leaf Warbler, or Phylloscopus tokaraensis, is the first bird species to be assigned a scientific name in Japan since 1981, when the Okinawa rail was named Gallirallus okinawae.
The team, which also included researchers from Japan's Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, determined that the Tokara Leaf Warbler is genetically and morphologically distinct from the Iijima's Leaf Warbler, which has long been considered conspecific.
The Iijima's Leaf Warbler, or Phylloscopus ijimae, a migratory bird in the order Passeriformes, is approximately 12 centimeters long and has been known to breed in Tokyo's Izu Islands. Breeding by a similar bird was confirmed in the Tokara Islands in 1988, but that bird was classified as the same species as the Iijima's Leaf Warbler in a study published the following year.
Researcher Takema Saito of the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology initiated studying the birds out of skepticism that the two populations of birds had been considered the same species despite the island groups being located about 1,000 kilometers apart. The research team conducted a detailed analysis of genetic information, morphological differences, and variations in calls.
Earlier, the first cherry blossom of 2026 was confirmed in Japan’s Kofu, Gifu, and Kochi.