Tahiti sandpiper | |
---|---|
Forster's drawing | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Charadriiformes |
Family: | Scolopacidae |
Genus: | Prosobonia |
Species: | †P. leucoptera |
Binomial name | |
†Prosobonia leucoptera (Gmelin, JF, 1789) | |
Synonyms | |
Tringa leucopteraGmelin, 1789 |
The Tahiti sandpiper or Tahitian sandpiper (Prosobonia leucoptera) is an extinct member of the large wader family Scolopacidae that was endemic to Tahiti in French Polynesia.
It was discovered in 1773 during Captain Cook's second voyage, when a single specimen seems to have been collected, but it became extinct in the nineteenth century. Only one museum specimen is known to exist, held in the Aves collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Center. The bird's name in the Tahitian language was transcribed as toromē.
The Tahiti sandpiper was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae . He placed it with the other sandpipers in the genus Tringa and coined the binomial name Tringa leucoptera. [2] Gmelin based his description on the "white-winged sandpiper" that had been described and illustrated in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen collected in Tahiti. [3] The species is now placed in the genus Prosobonia that was introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte with the Tahiti sandpiper as the type species. [4] [5] Bonaparte did not expain the etymology of the genus name but it is probably from the Ancient Greek prosōpon meaning "mask" or "face". The specific epithet leucoptera is from Ancient Greek leukopteros meaning "white-winged". [6]
Based on Zusi & Jehl (1970): [7] A small (some 18 cm long), plain-colored sandpiper, brown below, darker above, with a white wing patch. Top and sides of head and neck to wings and back sooty brown, darker on back and wings. A small white patch behind and above the eye. Chin buffish white. Lores, rump and underside rusty. Wing coverts with some rusty edging. Remiges with paler inner surfaces. Underside of wing dusky brown with paler edges to coverts. A crescent-shaped white patch formed by tertiary coverts; smaller on the underside of the wing. Ten primaries, twelve rectrices. Central tail feathers sooty brown with rusty tips; outer ones rusty with sooty brown barring.
Bill blackish, lower mandible slightly paler, pointed, thin and short, rather like in an insectivorous passerine than a wader. Legs greenish-hued pale straw color. Toes unwebbed. A slim pale rusty ring around the eye. The iris was very dark brown.
The Tahiti sandpiper is believed to have occurred near small streams.
Two probable specimens taken on Moorea by William Anderson between September 30 and October 11, 1777, formed the basis for the description of the Moorea sandpiper. Three specimens mentioned by John Latham in 1787 all differed from one another, but the single remaining one, RMNH 87556, cannot be positively identified with any of them. How it came into the possession of the museum cannot be retraced with complete certainty, but it probably was acquired in 1819 with other specimens from Georg Forster. [8] There also exists a painting by Forster, drawn from the original specimen.
At any rate, the specimen agrees better with the Tahiti bird in Forster's painting. The Moorea bird—of which another painting, by William Ellis, and a plate by J. Webber, supposed to depict the other specimen, constitute all remaining evidence—differs in the color of wings and head. Whether these two forms were species, subspecies, or simply variants due to age or sex cannot be determined with certainty, but for the present they are more often treated as different species than not.
Bones of a related form have been found on Mangaia in the Cook Islands. It is not likely that they will be studied anytime soon: a scientific description would require either successful extraction and analysis of DNA from both the bones and the Leiden specimen (which would risk being damaged during extraction of the tissue sample), or the collection of a sufficient amount of material from Tahiti or Moorea to determine the Mangaia bird's affiliation by analysis of the osteology.
The Polynesian sandpipers form the genus Prosobonia. They are small wading birds confined to remote Pacific islands of French Polynesia. Only one species is now extant, and it is rare and little known. This bird is sometimes separated in the genus Aechmorhynchus, restricting the genus to the extinct southern forms.
The Moorea sandpiper is an extinct member of the large wader family Scolopacidae that was endemic to Mo'orea in French Polynesia, where the locals called it te-te in the Tahitian language.
The ruddy duck is a duck from North America and one of the stiff-tailed ducks. The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek oxus, "sharp", and oura, "tail", and jamaicensis is "from Jamaica".
The common sandpiper is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its American sister species, the spotted sandpiper, make up the genus Actitis. They are parapatric and replace each other geographically; stray birds of either species may settle down with breeders of the other and hybridize. Hybridization has also been reported between the common sandpiper and the green sandpiper, a basal species of the closely related shank genus Tringa.
The stilt sandpiper is a small shorebird. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus name kalidris or skalidris is a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific himantopus means "strap foot" or "thong foot".
The varied thrush is a member of the thrush family, Turdidae. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Ixoreus.
The surfbird is a small stocky wader in the family Scolopacidae. It was once considered to be allied to the turnstones, and placed in the monotypic genus Aphriza, but is now placed in the genus Calidris.
The Tuamotu sandpiper is an endangered member of the large wader family Scolopacidae, that is endemic to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. It is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus Aechmorhynchus. A native name, apparently in the Tuamotuan language, is kivi-kivi.
The bristle-thighed curlew is a medium-sized shorebird that breeds in Alaska and winters on tropical Pacific islands.
The wandering tattler, is a medium-sized wading bird. It is similar in appearance to the closely related gray-tailed tattler, T. brevipes. The tattlers are unique among the species of Tringa for having unpatterned, greyish wings and backs, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent supercilium.
The Tahiti rail, Tahitian red-billed rail, or Pacific red-billed rail is an extinct species of rail that lived on Tahiti. It was first recorded during James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775), on which it was illustrated by Georg Forster and described by Johann Reinhold Forster. No specimens have been preserved. As well as the documentation by the Forsters, there have been claims that the bird also existed on the nearby island of Mehetia. The Tahiti rail appears to have been closely related to, and perhaps derived from, the buff-banded rail, and has also been historically confused with the Tongan subspecies of that bird.
The blue-crowned lorikeet, also known as the blue-crowned lory, blue-crested lory, Solomon lory or Samoan lory, is a parrot found throughout the Lau Islands (Fiji), Tonga, Samoa, Niue and adjacent islands, including: ʻAlofi, Fotuhaʻa, Fulago, Futuna, Haʻafeva, Niuafoʻou, Moce, Niue, Ofu, Olosega, Samoa, Savaiʻi, Tafahi, Taʻu, Tofua, Tonga, Tungua, ʻUiha, ʻUpolu, Varoa, Vavaʻu, and Voleva. It is a 19 cm green lorikeet with a red throat, blue crown, and belly patch shading from red at the top to purple at the bottom.
The Polynesian ground dove is a critically endangered species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to the Tuamotus in French Polynesia with recent records from the atolls of Matureivavao, Rangiroa, Tenararo, Morane, Vahanga and perhaps Tikehau. It favors tropical forests, especially with Pandanus tectorius, Pisonia grandis and shrubs, but it has also been recorded from dense shrub growing below coconut palms. It is threatened by habitat loss and predation by introduced species such as cats and rats. The total population is estimated to be around 100-120 birds and it has already disappeared from several islands where it formerly occurred.
The grey-green fruit dove is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to the Society Islands in French Polynesia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.
The spotless crake is a species of bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It is widely distributed species occurring from the Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, across the southern Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas Islands and south to New Zealand.
The Christmas sandpiper or Kiritimati sandpiper was a small shorebird. It became extinct some time in the first half of the 19th century. It was endemic to Christmas Island, since 1919 part of Kiribati. It is known solely from a single contemporaneous illustration, and a description by William Anderson, both made during the third circumnavigation voyage commanded by Captain James Cook, which visited the atoll of Christmas Island between 24 December 1777 and 2 January 1778.
The spotted green pigeon or Liverpool pigeon is a species of pigeon which is most likely extinct. It was first mentioned and described in 1783 by John Latham, who had seen two specimens of unknown provenance and a drawing depicting the bird. The taxonomic relationships of the bird were long obscure, and early writers suggested many different possibilities, though the idea that it was related to the Nicobar pigeon prevailed, and it was therefore placed in the same genus, Caloenas. Today, the species is only known from a specimen kept in World Museum, Liverpool. Overlooked for much of the 20th century, it was recognised as a valid extinct species by the IUCN Red List only in 2008. It may have been native to an island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean, and it has been suggested that a bird referred to as titi by Tahitian islanders was this bird. In 2014, a genetic study confirmed it as a distinct species related to the Nicobar pigeon, and showed that the two were the closest relatives of the extinct dodo and Rodrigues solitaire.
P. leucoptera may refer to:
The Society Islands tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in the Society Islands of French Polynesia.