Aruba Amazon
| Aruba Amazon | ||||||||||||
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| Amazona barbadensis canifrons | ||||||||||||
| ( Lawrence , 1883) |
The Aruba Amazon ( Amazona barbadensis canifrons ) is an extinct subspecies of the Yellow-shouldered Amazon ( Amazona barbadensis ). It was endemic to the island of Aruba near Barbados . Nothing is known about their way of life.
features
Only the holotype is described, a cage bird brought to New York in the spring of 1882, which later died and whose carcass was then disposed of. It has a length of 36 cm. The plumage is generally green. The lower abdomen is washed out bluish. The wings of the hand are deep blue. The wing mirror is bright red. The neck feathers have black borders. The throat feathers are interspersed with yellow. The forehead, chin and throat are gray. The skull is dull, light yellow. The sides of the head are dull yellow. The thighs are gray. The tail is green, the base of the tail is yellow with red markings and a light greenish-yellow end band. The beak is whitish horn-colored, the tip of the beak dark. Legs and feet are dark gray.
die out
The type specimen of the Aruba Amazon was caught alive in 1882 and described by George Newbold Lawrence in 1883 . Although he asked for the bird to be preserved after its death, it was neglected. Lawrence made sure, however, that the bird's plumage had not changed during its lifetime. In the period that followed, the Amazon parrot population died out on Aruba, so that no further specimens of this subspecies could be collected. Furthermore, this breed was largely ignored in contemporary ornithological literature, especially since the ornithologist Ernst Hartert considered this form to be identical to the yellow-shouldered amazon as early as the end of the 19th century. It is not mentioned in the Checklist of the Birds of the World (1937) by James Lee Peters or in Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World (1967) by James Cowan Greenway . Karel Voous stated in 1957 that the Aruba Amazon probably disappeared between 1944 and 1947. The last individuals were either persecuted as a plague and poisoned for causing great damage in the orchards, or they were sold at high prices. In the following period Voous pointed out that two individuals were mentioned in the records of a B. Hartwell, so that a few specimens could have survived after 1947. At the same time Voous doubted that the type specimen of Lawrence actually came from Aruba, since there are considerable individual and geographical variations of the yellow-shouldered amazon. It is therefore uncertain whether the Aruba Amazon actually represents a valid taxon.
literature
- Hans von Berlepsch: The birds of the island Curaçao after one of Mr. cand. Theol. Ernst Peters collection there , 1893: pp. 61–62
- Julian Pender Hume, Michael P. Walters: Extinct Birds , p. 186, A & C Black 2012, ISBN 140815725X