Kosrae crake

Last updated

Kosrae crake
Status iucn3.1 EX.svg
Extinct  (mid-19th century)  (IUCN 3.1) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Zapornia
Species:
Z. monasa
Binomial name
Zapornia monasa
(Kittlitz, 1858)
Synonyms

The Kosrae crake or Kusaie Island crake (Zapornia monasa), sometimes also stated as Kittlitz's rail, is an extinct bird from the family Rallidae. It occurred on the island of Kosrae and perhaps on Ponape in the south-western Pacific which belong both to the Caroline Islands. Its preferred habitat were coastal swamps and marshland covered with taro plants (Colocasia esculenta).

Contents

Description

It was discovered in 1827 by Heinrich von Kittlitz. Von Kittlitz described its plumage as general black with bluish gloss. The quills were more brownish. The chin and the middle of the throat were brown. The surface of its tail were brownish-black. The undertail coverts exhibit white spots. The inner wing coverts were brownish and were spotted with white. The outer edged of the first primary was dull brown. Eyes, legs and feet had a reddish hue. The bill was black. Its size was about 18 cm.

Controversial data exists as to its ability to fly. X-ray measurements of the carpometacarpi lead to the assumption that it was flightless. However its native name nay-tay-mai-not which means "the one who lands in the taro plot" might imply that the ability to fly was present. [2]

Extinction

The Kosrae crake is only known by two specimens taken by von Kittlitz in December 1827 in the swamps of Kosrae. The two skins are now in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. The story of its extinction is similar to the vanishing of the Kosrae starling (another extinct species from Kosrae). Even in 1828 von Kittlitz described this bird as uncommon. German ornithologist Otto Finsch failed to find this bird on his expedition in 1880 and also the Whitney South Seas Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History in 1931 remained unsuccessful on a survey after that species. They became apparently victims of rats which had overrun Kosrae after they were able to escape from missionary and whaling vessels which were careened on the beach of Kosrae.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little crake</span> Species of bird

The little crake is a very small waterbird of the family Rallidae. parva is Latin for "small". This species was long included in the genus Porzana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baillon's crake</span> Species of bird

Baillon's crake, also known as the marsh crake, is a small waterbird of the family Rallidae.

Friedrich Heinrich, Freiherr von Kittlitz was a Prussian artist, naval officer, explorer and naturalist. He was a descendant of a family of old Prussian nobility. He collected specimens and made illustrations on major expeditions and wrote a few books on his travels. Several species were described on the basis of specimens collected by him and a few are named after him including Kittlitz's plover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanna ground dove</span> Extinct species of bird

The Tanna ground dove, also known as Forster's dove of Tanna, is an extinct dove species. Its taxonomic affiliation is uncertain but at its first scientific discussion by Johann Georg Wagler in 1829 it was classified into the genus Gallicolumba ; its closest relative is possibly the Santa Cruz ground dove. It was endemic to the Pacific island of Tanna, Vanuatu. Forster records a native name mahk, almost certainly from the Kwamera language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wake Island rail</span> Extinct species of bird

The extinct Wake Island rail was a flightless rail and the only native land bird on the Pacific atoll of Wake. It was found on the islands of Wake and Wilkes, and Peale, which is separated from the others by a channel of about 100 meters. It was hunted to extinction during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonin thrush</span> Extinct species of bird

The Bonin thrush, also known as Kittlitz's thrush or the Bonin Islands thrush, is an extinct species of Asian thrush. It is sometimes separated as the only species of the genus Cichlopasser. The only place where this bird was found was Chichi-jima in the Ogasawara Islands; it might conceivably have inhabited Anijima and Otōtojima, but this has not been borne out by observations or specimens. The species was only once observed by a naturalist, its discoverer Heinrich von Kittlitz. He encountered the thrush in the coastal woods where it usually kept to the ground; it may have been ground-nesting. The only specimens ever taken are in the Naturalis in Leiden (1), the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna (1), the Senckenbergmuseum in Frankfurt (1) and in the Zoological Museum, St. Petersburg (2).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonin nankeen night heron</span> Extinct subspecies of bird

The Bonin nankeen night heron is an extinct subspecies of the nankeen night heron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coues's gadwall</span> Extinct subspecies of bird

Coues's gadwall or the Washington Island gadwall, is an extinct dabbling duck which is only known by two immature specimens from the Pacific island of Teraina, Line Islands, Kiribati. They are in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The bird was named in honor of Elliott Coues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Round Island burrowing boa</span> Extinct species of snake

The Round Island burrowing boa is an extinct species of snake, in the monotypic genus Bolyeria, in the family Bolyeriidae. The species, which was endemic to Mauritius, was last seen on Round Island in 1975. There are no recognized subspecies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosrae starling</span> Extinct species of bird

The Kosrae starling, also known as Kosrae Island starling, and formerly as Kusaie Mountain starling, is an extinct bird from the family of starlings (Sturnidae). It was endemic to the montane forests on the island of Kosrae which belong to the Caroline Islands in the south-western Pacific.

<i>Porzana</i> Genus of birds

Porzana is a genus of birds in the crake and rail family, Rallidae. Its scientific name is derived from Venetian terms for small rails. The spotted crake is the type species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Helena crake</span> Extinct species of bird

The Saint Helena crake is an extinct bird species from the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, one of two flightless rails which survived there until the early 16th century.

The Tasman starling was described in 1836 by John Gould as a species which occurred on both Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island. In 1928 Australian ornithologist Gregory Mathews recognized that the plumage of the race from Lord Howe Island was much browner and more greyish than the plumage of the Norfolk Island race and split the species into two forms, the Norfolk starling, and the Lord Howe starling. Both subspecies are now extinct, thus so the species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oʻahu ʻōʻō</span> Extinct species of bird

The O‘ahu ‘ō‘ō was a member of the extinct genus of the ‘ō‘ōs (Moho) within the extinct family Mohoidae. It was previously regarded as member of the Australo-Pacific honeyeaters (Meliphagidae).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black crake</span> Species of bird

The black crake is a waterbird in the rail and crake family, Rallidae. It breeds in most of sub-Saharan Africa except in very arid areas. It undertakes some seasonal movements in those parts of its range which are subject to drought. No subspecies have been described. It appears that the oldest available name for this species is actually Rallus niger J. F. Gmelin, 1788, but Swainson believed that the earlier name was unidentifiable, and his own has since become well embedded in the literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spotless crake</span> Species of bird

The spotless crake is a species of bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It is widely distributed species occurring from the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand across the southern Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas Islands to the south east along the Tuamotus island chain to Pitcairn Oeno island,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Maui crake</span> Extinct species of bird

The great Maui crake or great Maui rail is an extinct bird species from Maui, Hawaiian Islands, known only from subfossil bones. The holotype are the bones of one almost-complete skeleton, found in Auwahi Cave on the lower southern slope of Haleakalā at 1,145 m AMSL. Its first remains, however, were recovered in 1972 and/or 1974 from lower Waihoi Valley further east and less than half as far uphill.

The Mangaia crake is an extinct species of flightless bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It was described in 1986 from subfossil bones of late Holocene age found in caves on the island of Mangaia, in the southern Cook Islands of East Polynesia. It was placed in the then-loosely circumscribed genus Porzana, but it almost certainly does not belong to Porzana proper as understood in modern times. Rather, it most likely was one of the crakes which are now separated as genus Zapornia. While the species survived for hundreds of years of Polynesian settlement, even despite the establishment of introduced predators, at some point in the last millennium Mangaia suffered an ecosystem collapse with far-reaching consequences, the extinction of "P." rua among them.

<i>Zapornia</i> Genus of birds

Zapornia is a recently revalidated genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae; it was included in Porzana for much of the late 20th century. These smallish to tiny rails are found across most of the world, but are entirely absent from the Americas except as wind-blown stray birds. A number of species, and probably an even larger number of prehistorically extinct ones, are known only from small Pacific islands; several of these lost the ability to fly in the absence of terrestrial predators. They are somewhat less aquatic than Porzana proper, inhabiting the edges of wetlands, reedbelts, but also drier grass- and shrubland and in some cases open forest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolines tropical moist forests</span>

The Carolines tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in Micronesia. It includes the central and eastern Caroline Islands in the Federated States of Micronesia.

References

  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Zapornia monasa". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016: e.T22692708A93366211. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22692708A93366211.en . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. David Day (1981). The Doomsday Book of Animals, p. 87, Ebury Press, London, ISBN   0-670-27987-0

Further reading