NOVEL AVIFAUNAL INVENTORY OF GUNUNG Q, AN OVERLOOKED OUTLYING MOUNTAIN RANGE IN PAPUA, INDONESIA

Abstrak

Papua is the second-largest island on earth and a major centre of biodiversity, but remainsunderexplored. The island’s montane fauna is particularly rich in endemic species, but most of itsexploration has historically focused on the main cordillera that stretches across the island from east towest. Exploration of a number of smaller, isolated outlying mountain ranges has recently produced asubstantial amount of new species discovery. We explored the avifauna of Gunung Q, an isolatedoutlying mountain in the province of Papua (Jayapura) rising to ~1800m, with no topographicconnection to any nearby mountain range. To the best of our knowledge, Gunung Q has never previouslybeen inventoried by biologists. Our fieldwork, which encompassed exploration of the mountain only upto ~1100m, produced various new regional records and suggests that Gunung Q has the potential forsubstantial undiscovered endemism at higher elevations.