The nene, also known as the nēnē or the Hawaiian goose, is a species of bird endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. The nene is exclusively found in the wild on the islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauaʻi, Molokai, and Hawaiʻi. In 1957, it was designated as the official state bird of the state of Hawaiʻi.
The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on the water surface, and in some cases diving in at least shallow water. The family contains around 174 species in 43 genera.
The Anatinae are a subfamily of the family Anatidae. Its surviving members are the dabbling ducks, which feed mainly at the surface rather than by diving. The other members of the Anatinae are the extinct moa-nalo, a young but highly apomorphic lineage derived from the dabbling ducks.
Flightless birds are birds that, through evolution, lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail. The largest flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird in general, is the ostrich.
The moa-nalo are a group of extinct aberrant, goose-like ducks that lived on the larger Hawaiian Islands, except Hawaiʻi itself, in the Pacific. They were the major herbivores on most of these islands until they became extinct after human settlement.
The nēnē-nui or wood-walking goose is an extinct species of goose that once inhabited Maui and possibly Kauaʻi, Oʻahu and perhaps Molokaʻi in the Hawaiian Islands. It is known from a large number of subfossil bones found in Holocene cave sediments.
Kokia cookei is a small, deciduous tree commonly known as the kokiʻo, Molokaʻi treecotton, Cooke's kokiʻo, or Molokaʻi kokiʻo.
Ciridops is an extinct genus of Hawaiian honeycreeper species that occurred in prehistoric and historic times on the Hawaiian islands of Hawaii, Molokai, Kauai and Oahu. This genus was created in 1892 by Alfred Newton in an article published by the journal Nature on the basis of the ʻula-ʻai-hawane, which was named Fringilla anna by Sanford B. Dole in 1879.
Storrs Lovejoy Olson was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known for his studies of fossil and subfossil birds on islands such as Ascension, St. Helena and Hawaii. His early higher education took place at Florida State University in 1966, where he obtained a B.A. in biology, and the University of Florida, where he received an M.S. in biology. Olson's doctoral studies took place at Johns Hopkins University, in what was then the School of Hygiene and Public Health. He was married to fellow paleornithologist Helen F. James.
Hawaiian honeycreepers are a group of small birds endemic to Hawaiʻi. They are members of the finch family Fringillidae, closely related to the rosefinches (Carpodacus), but many species have evolved features unlike those present in any other finch. Their great morphological diversity is the result of adaptive radiation in an insular environment. Many have been driven to extinction since the first humans arrived in Hawaii, with extinctions increasing over the last 2 centuries following European discovery of the islands, with habitat destruction and especially invasive species being the main causes.
Talpanas lippa, the Kauaʻi mole duck, is an extinct species of duck. It was first described by Andrew N. Iwaniuk, Storrs L. Olson, and Helen F. James in the journal Zootaxa in November 2009. It is the only known member of the genus Talpanas. It was endemic to the Hawaiian island of Kauai where the fossil remains were unearthed in the Makauwahi Cave, Maha‘ulepu. The archaeological association of the bones is about 6000 years BP.
The Makauwahi Cave is the largest limestone cave found in Hawaii. It lies on the south coast of the island of Kauaʻi, in the Māhāʻulepū Valley close to Māhāʻulepū Beach, and is important for its paleoecological and archaeological values. It is reached via a sinkhole and has been described as “…maybe the richest fossil site in the Hawaiian Islands, perhaps in the entire Pacific Island region”.
Apteribis is an extinct genus of flightless birds in the ibis subfamily that was endemic to the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Branta rhuax, the giant Hawaiʻi goose, is an extinct goose endemic to the island of Hawaiʻi. It was initially described as the monotypic genus Geochen, but then reassigned to Branta by Storrs L. Olson in 2013 after reexamination of the subfossil material.
Thambetochen is an extinct genus of moa-nalo duck. It contains two species, the Maui Nui moa-nalo and the smaller O'ahu moa-nalo.
The Oʻahu petrel is an extinct species of very small gadfly petrel known only from subfossil material found in the Hawaiian Islands. The specific epithet comes from the Latin jugabilis, meaning “that which may be joined”, with reference to the unusual, nearly conjoined, supraorbital salt gland depressions on the cranium. It has no obvious close relatives among living species of Pterodroma.
The small-billed moa-nalo, also known as the stumbling moa-nalo, is a species of moa-nalo, one of a group of extinct, flightless, large goose-like ducks, which evolved in the Hawaiian Islands of the North Pacific Ocean. It was described in 1991 from subfossil material collected in September 1982 by Storrs Olson, Helen James and others, from the Auwahi Cave on the southern slopes of Haleakalā, on the island of Maui.
The Maui Nui large-billed moa-nalo, also known as the Maui Nui moa-nalo, is one of two species of moa-nalo in the genus Thambetochen. Moa-nalo are a group of extinct, flightless, large goose-like ducks, which evolved in the Hawaiian Islands of the North Pacific Ocean.
The Oʻahu moa-nalo is one of two species of moa-nalo in the genus Thambetochen. Moa-nalo are a group of extinct, flightless, large goose-like ducks, which evolved in the Hawaiian Islands of the North Pacific Ocean.
