Eyles consecration
| Eyles consecration | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Circus teauteensis | ||||||||||||
| Forbes , 1892 |
The Eyles consecration ( Circus teauteensis , Syn .: Circus eylesi ) is an extinct type of consecration and the largest known representative of this genus. Endemic to New Zealand, it lived in the thick forests that covered most of the island before humans reached New Zealand. Their diet consisted of medium-sized forest birds such as Maori fruit pigeons or ragged crows . On the North and South Island there were separate forms of the Eyles consecration, which differed in body dimensions, but are considered to belong to one species. Your closest relative was probably the Australian marsh harrier ( Circus approximans ).
The extinction of the Eyles consecration is attributed to the clearing of the New Zealand forests by the people who immigrated in the 13th century and to the Pacific rats that it brought in.
features
The Eyles consecration was an extraordinarily large and heavy representative of its genus. While the largest consecrations alive today weigh around 1 kg, the weight of the Eyles consecration is estimated at 3–3.5 kg. In terms of proportions, it was less similar to the typical, flatland harriers, but more closely to representatives of the hawks and sparrowhawks ( Accipiter ). In relation to their height, they had shorter and rounded wings. The Eyles consecration was about 4½ times larger than the marsh harrier and had an estimated wingspan of two meters.
Occurrence and habitat
The subfossil material was found in Lake Poukawa , Te-Aute Swamp and Hukanui on the North Island and in the Pyramid Valley on the South Island . The habitat consisted of dry forests and bushland and ranged from the coast to the subalpine zone.
Way of life
Based on the nature of the bones and the fossil deposits, it was possible to reconstruct the preferred food and hunting behavior. The main prey was the Maori fruit pigeon ( Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae ). In contrast to the harriers that are alive today, who glide over the open terrain and locate their prey by sight and sound, the Eyles consecration went hunting in a more wooded area. Their quick flaps of wings, their body mass, their maneuverability, and their long legs and feet were of great advantage in catching prey.
die out
The Eyles consecration is known only from subfossil material obtained from approximately 77 individuals. It probably died out in the 13th century when the Maori settled New Zealand. The settlers hunted the prey of the consecration and of the consecration itself. The imported Pacific rat stalked the chicks.
Systematics
The first bones of this kind come from the collection of Augustus Hamilton , mentioned in 1892 by Henry Ogg Forbes as Circus hamiltoni and Circus teauteensis . It wasn't until the late 1940s that additional material was discovered in the Pyramid Valley , described by Ron Scarlett as Circus eylesi in 1953 . In the early 1960s, amateur archaeologist Russel Price carried out extensive excavations at Lake Poukawa and unearthed numerous bone fragments from large numbers of Eyles Weihen individuals. In 1933, Kálmán Lambrecht considered Circus hamiltoni and Circus teauteensis as nomina dubia , as there were insufficient descriptions for these taxa. Lambrecht moved the Te Aute Swamp, the Terra typica of Circus teauteensis , to the South Island by mistake. Even Walter Reginald Brook Oliver reduced in 1955 Circus teauteensis and Circus hamiltoni on the nomina-nuda status and only looked at Scarlett's Circus eylesi as valid Art. 1964 accepted Pierce Brodkorb Circus teauteensis as a valid name, led Circus hamiltoni as nomen nudum and synonymisierte Circus eylesi with Circus teauteensis . 1970 saw the ornithologist Frederick Charles Kinsky Circus teauteensis as a separate species for the North Island and Circus eylesi as a separate species for the South Island. In the 1990 edition of Evan Graham Turbott's Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica, Circus eylesi was listed for both the North Island and the South Island. After a new review of Forbes' material (a right tibiotarsus from the Natural History Museum as a syntype ), the name Circus teauteensis was considered valid in 2010 and Circus eylesi was classified as a junior synonym.
literature
- Walter Rothschild: Extinct Birds , 1907 ( online edition )
- Kálmán Lambrecht: Handbuch der Palaeornithologie , Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin, 1933
- Walter Reginald Brook Oliver: New Zealand Birds 2nd edition, 1955
- Elliot W. Dawson: Rediscoveries of the New Zealand Subfossil Birds Named by HO Forbes , Ibis 100, 1958
- Pierce Brodkorb: Catalog of Fossil Birds No. 2, 1964
- Frederick Charles Kinsky: Annotated checklist of the birds of New Zealand including the birds of the Ross dependency , 1970
- Evan Graham Turbott: Checklist of the birds of New Zealand and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica , 1990
- Alan JD Tennyson & P. Martinson: Extinct birds of New Zealand. Te Papa Press, 2006 ISBN 0-909010-21-8
- Trevor H. Worthy, Richard N. Holdaway The Lost World of the Moa. Prehistoric Life of New Zealand. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2002, ISBN 0-253-34034-9 , pp. 336-355.
- Trevor H. Worthy & Richard N. Holdaway: Quaternary fossil faunas, overlapping taphonomies, and palaeofaunal reconstruction in North Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand. In: Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand 26, No. 3, September 1996. pp. 275-361.
- JP Hume: Extinct Birds. (2nd revised edition), Bloomsbury, London, 2017, p. 90
Web links
- Illustration from A. Tennyson & P. Martinson (2006): Extinct birds of New Zealand. On-line
Individual evidence
- ↑ Worthy & Holdaway 2002, pp. 347-348.
- ↑ Michael Knapp, Jessica E. Thomas, James Haile, Stefan Prost, Simon YW Ho, Nicolas Dussex, Sophia Cameron-Christie, Olga Kardailsky, Ross Barnett, Michael Bunce, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, R. Paul Scofield: Mitogenomic evidence of close relationships between New Zealand's extinct giant raptors and small-sized Australian sister-taxa , Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.01.026
- ^ Brian J. Gill , Ricardo Palma, Alan JD Tennyson, R. Paul Scofield, BD Bell, GK Chambers, DG Medway, Trevor H. Worthy: Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica , 4th Edition, Checklist Committee Ornithological Society of New Zealand, Te Papa Press in association with the Ornithological Society of New Zealand Inc., 2010, ISBN 978-1-877385-59-9 , p. 171