Ascension night heron
| Ascension night heron | ||||||||||
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| Nycticorax olsoni | ||||||||||
| WRP Bourne , NP Ashmole & KEL Simmons , 2003 |
The Ascension night heron ( Nycticorax olsoni ) is a little-known extinct species of heron that was endemic to Ascension . It is best known for the subfossil bones of six specimens, which the British ornithologists Philip Ashmole , Kenneth Edwin Laurence Ryder Simmons and William Richmond Postle Bourne found in the guano deposits and caves of Ascension and which were used to describe the species in 2003.
Possibly the Ascension night heron is identical to the Aponar (sometimes also written Aponard or Aponat), a bird mentioned in André Thevet's travelogue "Of an Ilande named the Ascention" from 1555 (published in 1558). According to Thevet's notes, the bird is said to have been the size of a heron and flightless. It was also characterized by small wings, a black back, a white belly and a cormorant-like beak. If you killed these birds, they should have squealed like pigs. The Ascension night heron probably became extinct in the 16th century due to overhunting and introduced mammals. The specific epithet refers to Ashmole's colleague Storrs Lovejoy Olson .
literature
- Bourne, WRP, Ashmole, NP & Simmons KEL: A new subfossil night heron and a new genus for the extinct rail from Ascension Island, central tropical Atlantic Ocean. Ardea 91, Issue 1, 2003: pp. 45–51 PDF full text