#cerrado

🐦“Little-roll-of-the-flatlands”

🇧🇷Rolinha-do-planalto

🇬🇧Blue-eyed Ground-Dove

📖(Columbina cyanopis)

I was delighted to discover this wonderful bird, yet not surprised, since the Brazilian Cerrado holds so many unknown treasures it’s only natural that this amazing dove comes from there. First discovered in 1823, this blue fellow was thought to be extinct from 1941 until 2015, when Brazilian ornithologist Rafael Bessa spotted the first “Little-roll-of-the-flatlands” in years, living in a very particular area of the Cerrado. This species is considered critically endangered by the IUCN list, the reason being the massive destruction of the Cerrado biome by the agribusiness industry. Its scientific name literally means “blue-eyed dove” and I think that’s beautiful. In 2017, only 27 individuals were accounted for in the world (this bird being endemic to the Cerrado biome). This 15cm blue beauty feeds mainly on grains and has a very constant “whoap whoap whoap” kind of call (sorry about my terrible attempt at reproducing it). Both male and female are very similar, but the latter is paler than the former. Considering this blue-eyed preciousness disappeared off the radar for 75 YEARS, we still have loads to learn about them. I just hope we can do it before it’s too late. The cerrado must be protected.

Sources:

https://www.wikiaves.com.br/wiki/rolinha-do-planalto

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064421000201?via%3Dihub#sec0010

Conservation International is helping recover a savanna habitat nearly twice the size of Manhattan.

Brazil is home to a vast, but overlooked, tropical savanna called the Cerrado.

This sprawling patchwork of open grassland and scattered woodlands covers almost a quarter of the country — an area about the size of Greenland — providing habitat for 1,200 mammals, birds and reptiles and 6,000 plant species. Among its remarkable wildlife are giant anteaters, maned wolves, armadillos and brilliantly colored macaws.

But today, more than half of the original Cerrado has been cleared for cattle ranching and soy farming, making it one of the fastest disappearing ecosystems on Earth. And only a fraction of the remaining Cerrado is fully protected by the Brazilian government — around 3 percent.

In one corner of southwestern Brazil, a project designed by a sustainable timber operator, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group (TIG), and supported by Conservation International, is breathing new life into the savanna.

What was once a vast stretch of degraded pastureland just a year ago is being rapidly transformed into tree farms and 2,500 hectares (6,000 acres) of newly restored natural forest. While the project’s primary purpose is to store climate-warming carbon, it is also designed to protect biodiversity.

8 page mini zine!!!! Bestiary of the Cerrado 🇧🇷

Working on zines for an upcoming zinefest 😛