Data Zone
Justification of Red List category
This species was only known from Lake Tota, Colombia. It was last recorded in 1977 and is now Extinct as a result of human-induced changes to the lake, with intensive searches in 1981 failing to find it.
Population justification
None remain. The species is known from 18 or 19 specimens collected between 1939-1964 (Fjeldså 1993). It was still abundant on Lake Tota in 1945 (Borrero 1947), but numbers crashed in the 1950s due to various factors and the last confirmed record was in 1977. Because intensive studies in 1981 (Fjeldså 1993) and 1982 (Varty et al. 1986) failed to find the species, it is now considered Extinct (Collar et al. 1994).
Podiceps andinus was restricted to the Bogotá wetlands at c.2,600 m in the Eastern Andes of Colombia.
It inhabited freshwater wetlands, including reed-fringed pools and lakes.
It declined as a combined result of wetland drainage, siltation, pesticide pollution, disruption by reed harvesting, hunting and predation by introduced Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss (Fjeldså 1993).
Text account compilers
Brooks, T., Martin, R., Hermes, C., Mahood, S., Khwaja, N.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Colombian Grebe Podiceps andinus. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/colombian-grebe-podiceps-andinus on 23/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 23/11/2024.