The Forest Owlet's Return
For 113 years, a small Indian owl was thought extinct, partly because of a museum fraud. Then two birdwatchers found it in Maharashtra.
What was reported
The forest owlet, a small, stocky owl found only in central India, was last reliably recorded in 1884. Searches in the places listed on old museum specimens found nothing, and it was presumed extinct.
Researchers later discovered why: some specimens in a British museum had been stolen and re-labelled with false locations by a 20th-century collector, sending searchers to the wrong places. In November 1997, ornithologists Pamela Rasmussen and Ben King searched the right kind of forest and found a forest owlet at Toranmal in Maharashtra.
Explanations offered
Since then, small populations have been found in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The owlet is still endangered, but its rediscovery showed how a single dishonest record can make a living species seem lost.
- When
- Lost after 1884; rediscovered 1997
- Where
- Toranmal, Nandurbar, Maharashtra, India
- Witnesses
- Ornithologists Pamela Rasmussen and Ben King
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.