Aldabrabush singer

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Aldabrabush singer
Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Sylvioidea
Family : Reed warbler (Acrocephalidae)
Genre : Nesillas
Type : Aldabrabush singer
Scientific name
Nesillas aldabrana
Benson & Penny , 1968

The Aldabrabush warbler ( Nesillas aldabrana , erroneously Nesillas aldabranus ), sometimes also referred to as the Aldabra blackcap warbler , is an extinct songbird from the reed warbler family (Acrocephalidae).

description

The Aldabrabuschsänger reached a length of 13 cm and a wing length of 6.3 cm. The tail length was 8.6 cm and the weight 19.5 grams. The crown of the head and top were vivid brown. The rump and tail coverts were more cinnamon brown. The sides of the head were gray-brown. The gray and white stripe above the eyes was clearly marked. The wings were dark brown with light tan feather edges. The long tiered tail consisted of twelve feathers. It was tan-brown in color. The underside was gray-white.

Discovery and Extinction

The aldabrabush singer was only discovered in late 1967 in the Aldabraatoll (part of the Seychelles ) in the Indian Ocean. The British ornithologist Malcolm Penny found a male, a female and a nest with 3 eggs. However, young birds have never been detected.

Further searches for the bird remained unsuccessful until the mid-1970s when Robert Prys-Jones of the Natural History Museum managed to find, ring and photograph six more specimens, all of them males.

The bird species was endemic to a 10 hectare coastal strip at the western end of the island of Malabar. A single male was sighted in 1983. In 1985 it was described in the specialist literature as the rarest and most restricted bird in the world. Despite an intensive search, the extinction had to be confirmed in 1986, and since 1994 the bird has been officially on the list of extinct bird species in the IUCN . Rats, cats and introduced goats apparently contributed to the extinction of the species.

literature

  • CW Benson, MJ Penny: A new species of warbler from the Aldabra Atoll. In: Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 88, 1968, pp. 102-108.
  • RP Prys-Jones: The ecology and conservation of the Aldabra Brush Warbler Nesillas aldabranus. In: Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London (Ser. B). 286, 1979, pp. 211-224.
  • Warren B. King on the behalf of the International council for bird preservation (ICBP) and the Survival service commission of IUCN (1978-1979): Red Data Book 2: Aves. 2nd Edition. IUCN, Morges, Switzerland 1981, ISBN 0-87474-583-7 .
  • Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds. 2000, ISBN 0-19-850837-9 .
  • J. Del Hoyo, A. Elliot, D. Christie (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 11: Old World Flycatchers to Old World Warblers. Lynx Edicions, 2006, ISBN 84-96553-06-X .
  • Peter Kennerley, David Pearson: Reed and Bush Warblers. Christopher Helm, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7136-6022-7 , pp. 536-537.
  • Errol Fuller : Aldabra Brush Warbler In: Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. Bloomsbury Natural History, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4081-7215-5 , pp. 128-133.

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