Conservationists and birdwatchers are celebrating the first recorded sighting of an Oriental darter in China's tropical Hainan province, a major milestone for regional biodiversity.

The bird was discovered earlier this month at the Haiwei National Wetland Park in Changjiang Li autonomous county. Xue Meili, deputy director of the park's management center, spotted the rare species during a routine patrol and alerted the Hainan Bird-Watching Record Committee. Experts later confirmed it as the province's first official sighting.

"I was conducting routine monitoring on July 11 when I saw it," Xue said. "It was completely unexpected."