A black-throated diver, a bird rarely seen in China, is spotted in Tai'an. [Photo/WeChat account: taianribao]

The gavia arctica, or black-throated diver, a kind of bird rarely seen in China, was spotted for the first time on Mount Tai in Tai'an in East China's Shandong province, local media reported.

The black-throated diver relies on a freshwater environment for food. They dive deep in the water for large fish and feed their offspring small fish and insects.

The black-throated diver belongs to the diver species, and lives in the fresh water in the tundra and forests in the northern hemisphere. In winter, the birds migrate to the south and are very rare migratory birds in China. The birds are about 68 centimeters long and they look like a duck with a flat and straight beak. They are excellent divers and mainly feed on fish.

Currently, there are 370 species of wild birds on Mount Tai, far exceeding the 148 species recorded in 1995.

Officials from the Mount Tai Forest Protection Station said that in order to further improve the management of biodiversity protection on Mount Tai, the province's Department of Ecological Environment has set up a plant protection and observation station on Mount Tai.

The station focuses on the conservation and observation of endemic plant species and rare and endangered wild plant resources as well as key protected wild plant resources, which lays the foundation for building a comprehensive observation station of biodiversity on Mount Tai in the future.