Mees's nightjar (''Caprimulgus meesi'') is a member of the

nightjar Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk tal ...

family (Caprimulgidae) described as new to science in 2004. It is a representative of the large-tailed nightjar complex found on Flores and

Sumba Sumba ( id, Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of , and the population was 779,049 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as a ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. Previously unrecognised as a separate taxon due to its lack of morphological distinctness, Sangster and Rozendaal (2004) described this new species on the basis of its vocalisations, which differ significantly from those of the large-tailed nightjar races resident on other islands in the Lesser Sundas. The species is named after

Gerlof Mees Gerlof Fokko Mees (16 June 1926 – 31 March 2013) was a Dutch ichthyologist, ornithologist and museum curator. During 1946 to 1949 he took part as a conscript in the military actions to reestablish rule in the Dutch East Indies. During that time ...

, former curator of the Natural History Museum, Leiden.

References

* Sangster, G. and F. Rozendaal (2004
''Territorial songs and species-level taxonomy of nightjars of the ''Caprimulgus macrurus'' complex, with the description of a new species.''

Zoologische Verhandelingen (Leiden) ''Zoologische Verhandelingen'' was a Dutch scientific journal covering research in zoology. It was published between 1948 and 2002 by the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) i ...

Vol. 350 pp. 7–4
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Mees's nightjar Birds of Flores Birds of Sumba Mees's nightjar {{Caprimulgiformes-stub