My Survey
I checked several sources to find a list of the countries with the most endemic birds. I checked Wikipedia, individual country lists, Clements’ checklist, IOC checklist, Avibase, and a general Google search. Every one of them gave me a different number of species. Although they all gave me different numbers, most were within a reasonable range of the others. So, after compiling all this data, I was able to come up with a short variable from the minimum to the maximum number of endemic species in each country.
Some checklists, such as Clements and IOC, disagree on which birds are considered a species. A species in one checklist might be only a subspecies in another checklist, or not exist at all if it is included with another species. That is why it is not possible to state an exact number of endemic species for each country.
Although the number of species differed from each source, the one thing that they all had in common was the names of the countries with the most endemic birds.
The Countries with the Most Endemic Birds
So, if you want to add a whole lot of new species to your lifelist, these are the countries to visit.
The Top Seven
- Indonesia 504 – 507
- Australia 358 – 365
- Philippines 267 – 268
- Brazil 243 – 246
- Papua New Guinea 109 – 111
- Columbia 85 – 90
- New Zealand 84 – 85