Ithaca, N.Y. – Researchers from Cornell University, along with others, have reportedly found the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Big Woods of Arkansas, a bird that was last seen in the United States in the 1940s and was believed to have become extinct.
The news of the woodpecker sighting was confirmed Wednesday by Cornell’s vice president for communications and media relations.
The journal Science is due to release information about the woodpecker finding today.
The ivory-billed woodpecker is an ornithologist’s Holy Grail, and a number of books have been written on the searches for it in Southern states throughout the 20th century.
The ivory-billed woodpecker inhabited forests in the southeastern United States and Cuba and vanished as the forests were logged.
The Audubon Society Watch List says it is black with white wing patches and stripes down its side and back. The bird is big, measuring up to 20 inches in length.
The birds also have a “large, chisel-tipped” ivory-colored bill, according to the Audubon Society. Male birds have a red crest and females a black head and crest.
The last confirmed sighting of the bird came in 1988 in the Sierra de Moa mountains of eastern Cuba, said the Audubon Society.
