Necker Island, in Hawaiian Mokumanamana, is a small island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is located at 23°34′30″N164°42′01″W in the Pacific Ocean, 430 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, 155 miles northwest of Nihoa, and 8 miles north of the Tropic of Cancer. It is part of the State of Hawaii in the United States. It contains important prehistoric archaeological sites of the Hawaiian culture and is part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Nihoa, also known as Bird Island or Moku Manu, is the tallest of ten islands and atolls in the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). The island is located at the southern end of the NWHI chain, 296 km (160 nmi) southeast of Necker Island. Nihoa is the closest NWHI in proximity to the eight main windward Hawaiian Islands at approximately 240 km (130 nmi) northwest of the island of Kauaʻi. The island has two peaks, 272 m (892 ft) Miller's Peak in the west, and 259 m (850 ft) Tanager Peak in the east. Nihoa's area is about 171 acres (0.69 km2) and is surrounded by a 142,000-acre (57,000 ha) coral reef. Its jagged outline gives the island its name, Nīhoa, which is Hawaiian for "tooth".
The French Frigate Shoals is the largest atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Its name commemorates French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse, who nearly lost two frigates when attempting to navigate the shoals. It consists of a 20-mile-long (32 km) crescent-shaped reef, twelve sandbars, and the 120-foot-high (37 m) La Perouse Pinnacle, the only remnant of its volcanic origins. The total land area of the islets is 61.508 acres (24.891 ha). Total coral reef area of the shoals is over 232,000 acres (94,000 ha). Tern Island, with an area of 26.014 acres (10.527 ha), has a landing strip and permanent habitations for a small number of people. It is maintained as a field station in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The French Frigate Shoals are about 487 nautical miles northwest of Honolulu.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Leeward Hawaiian Islands are a series of islands and atolls in the Hawaiian island chain located northwest of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. Politically, they are all part of Honolulu County in the U.S. state of Hawaii, except Midway Atoll, which is a territory distinct from the State of Hawaii, and grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The United States Census Bureau defines this area, except Midway, as Census Tract 114.98 of Honolulu County. Its total land area is 3.1075 square miles (8.048 km2). All the islands except Nihoa are north of the Tropic of Cancer, making them the only islands in Hawaii that lie outside the tropics.
Laysan, located 808 nautical miles northwest of Honolulu at 25°42′14″N171°44′04″W, is one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It comprises one land mass of 1,016 acres (4.11 km2), about 1 by 1+1⁄2 miles in size. It is an atoll of sorts, although the land completely surrounds a shallow central lake some 2.4 m (7.9 ft) above sea level that has a salinity approximately three times greater than the ocean. Laysan's Hawaiian name, Kauō, means egg.
The Laysan finch is a species of Hawaiian honeycreeper, that is endemic to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is one of four remaining finch-billed Hawaiian honeycreepers and is closely related to the smaller Nihoa finch. The Laysan finch is named for Laysan, the island to which it was endemic on its discovery. It was subsequently introduced to a few other atolls, and its historical range included some of the main islands.
Pritchardia remota, the Nihoa pritchardia, Nihoa fan palm, or Loulu, is a species of palm endemic on the island of Nihoa, Hawaiʻi, and later transplanted to the island of Laysan. It is a smaller tree than most other species of Pritchardia, typically reaching only 4–5 metres (13–16 ft) tall and with a trunk diameter of 15 centimetres (5.9 in). It is the only type of tree on the island and used to be abundant. In 1885 a wildfire ravaged the island, destroying most of the palms. Only about 700 of these trees remain, making the species endangered but numbers are slowly increasing. The palm is being cultivated in botanical gardens.
The Laysan millerbird was a subspecies of the millerbird, similar in appearance to the remaining subspecies, the Nihoa millerbird. Its dorsal side was brown, and its belly was grayish. Its name derives from its favorite food, several species of moths of the genus Agrotis commonly referred to as "millers".
Schiedea verticillata, known as the Devils Slide schiedea or Nihoa carnation, is an endangered species of plant in the family Caryophyllaceae, endemic to the island of Nihoa in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where it was discovered in 1923 by the Tanager Expedition. It has been listed as endangered since 1996.
Amaranthus brownii was an annual herb in the family Amaranthaceae. The plant was found only on the small island of Nihoa in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, growing on rocky outcrops at altitudes of 120–215 m (394–705 ft). It was one of nine species of Amaranthus in the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the only endemic Hawaiian species of the genus. It is now considered extinct.
Sesbania tomentosa, commonly known as Oahu riverhemp and ʻōhai, is an endangered species of plant in the pea family, Fabaceae, that is endemic to the main Hawaiian Islands as well as Nihoa and Necker Island. It inhabits low shrublands and, rarely, dry forests, at elevations from sea level to 2,500 ft (760 m). Associated native plant species include akiʻaki, ilima, naupaka kahakai, and pili. Off-road vehicles, wildfires, grazing, and alien species competition have destroyed their habitat on the main islands, but they are still quite common on Nihoa and Necker. At least 2000 specimens grow on Nihoa, while there are far less on Necker.
Maximilian Joseph August Schlemmer, known as the "King of Laysan," was a German immigrant to the United States who settled in Hawaii and spent fifteen years from 1894 to 1915 living with his family on the Hawaiian island of Laysan as superintendent of a guano mining operation. Schlemmer was interested in the birdlife of the island and made several studies which provide information on historic bird populations. However, Schlemmer and his family unwittingly introduced rabbits to Laysan, leading to the extinction of the Laysan rail and Laysan millerbird and permanently changed the island's ecology in the early 20th century. A biography of Schlemmer was written by his grandson, Tom Unger.
The Laysan honeycreeper or Laysan ʻapapane is an extinct bird species that was endemic to the island of Laysan in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Kenneth Pike Emory was an American anthropologist who played a key role in shaping modern anthropology in Oceania. In the tradition of A. L. Kroeber and other pioneering anthropologists who trained him, Emory's works span all four major fields of anthropology: archaeology, physical anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. With fellow scientists Gerrit P. Wilder, Honolulu botanist, and Mrs. Wilder, historian; Dr. Armstrong Sperry and Dr. Stanley Ball, he was part of the Bishop Museum scientific research party who explored the South Pacific on the schooner Kaimiloa.
The Mangarevan expedition of 1934 was a scientific expedition to investigate the natural history of the farthest southeastern islands of Polynesia, including Mangareva. It was a comprehensive natural history expedition of a kind more common during the previous century. Sponsored by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum of Honolulu, Hawaii and led by the malacologist Charles Montague Cooke Jr., its research team included the ethnologists Kenneth P. Emory and Peter H. Buck, the botanists Harold St. John and F. Raymond Fosberg, the malacologists Donald Anderson and Yoshio Kondo, and the undergraduate entomologist E. C. Zimmerman. After visiting 56 islands on a voyage of over 14,000 kilometers over a period of six months, they returned with an enormous quantity of data, including perhaps the richest collection ever made of plants in Polynesia.
Crocidosema leprarum is a moth of the family Tortricidae. It was first described by Lord Walsingham in 1907. It is endemic to the Hawaiian islands of Oahu, Molokai, Nihoa, Necker, French Frigate Shoals and Laysan.
The Bayard Dominick expedition was a 1920 scientific expedition to the Pacific islands of Polynesia, with four teams sent to compile archaeological and anthropological surveys of the Marquesas, Tonga, Austral Islands, and Hawaiʻi.
Erling Christophersen was a Norwegian botanist, geographer and diplomat. He participated in and led several notable scientific expeditions in the 20th century, including the fifth Tanager Expedition (1924) to Nihoa and Necker Island and the Norwegian Scientific Expedition to Tristan da Cunha (1937–1938).
The Laysan fan palm is a not formally described, extinct species of palm most likely in the genus Pritchardia. Endemic to the island of Laysan, it had become extinct by 1896.
