Scientists are on the hunt for over 120 species of birds that may—or may not—be extinct, and they want your help to find them. The ubiquity of smartphones has led to surge in data for birders and researchers alike, in the form of apps that allow amateur bird watchers to photograph and catalog their sightings. The amount of available data is so vast that a group of ornithologists decided to analyze it to see which species just haven’t been turning up.
The researchers, who hailed from American Bird Conservancy and its British counterpart, assembled more than 42 million photographs, audio recordings, and videos of birds uploaded to citizen scientist apps. In a study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment , they revealed that 144 bird species have not been seen in more than 10 years. The analysis was completed two years ago and, in the interim, a number of species were either spotted in the wild or in human care, or had their taxonomy reclassified.
In total, 126 species from the study are still lost. That doesn’t mean the birds are extinct. In fact, the researchers said only 62% of the unseen birds are in danger of going extinct.
Instead, the species are classified as “lost.” A 2022 paper noted that there is no formal definition of lost species but described them as those that “have simply dropped off science’s radar” by being unseen in the wild and also not being kept in zoos or other artificial spaces, for a decade or more. Though often at risk .