Bracesemerald hummingbird

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Bracesemerald hummingbird
Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Sailor birds (Apodiformes)
Family : Hummingbirds (Trochilidae)
Genre : Emerald Hummingbirds ( Chlorostilbon )
Type : Bracesemerald hummingbird
Scientific name
Chlorostilbon bracei
( Lawrence , 1877)

The Braces Emerald Hummingbird ( Chlorostilbon bracei ) is an extinct species of hummingbird that was native to New Providence , the main island of the Bahamas .

description

The body length was 9.5 cm, the wing length 11.4 cm and the tail length 2.7 cm. The black beak was slightly curved and conically pointed. The feet were black. The back was bronze-green in color with a golden tinge. The head was colored similar to the back, but had no gold shimmer. There was a white spot just behind the eyes. The throat shimmered in splendid blue-green tones. The feathers on the belly were green and had ash-gray tips. The wings had a purple hue. The tail feathers were greenish. The under tail-coverts were gray with a faint cinnamon tint around the edges.

Status and Extinction

The braces emerald hummingbird was known for over 100 years only from a single male specimen, which the American botanist Lewis Jones Knight Brace hunted on July 13, 1877 about 3 miles from Nassau in inland New Providence. The bellows, which is badly damaged at the throat, is now in the Smithsonian Institution . This little hummingbird has been ignored by experts for a long time. In 1880 the species was listed without comment as a synonym for the Cuban emerald hummingbird ( Chlorostilbon ricordii ). Until the 1930s, the unique status of the holotype was not taken into account at all, and it was viewed as a specimen of the Cuban Emerald Hummingbird that just happened to be stranded on New Providence. In 1945, the American ornithologist James Bond listed it as the subspecies Chlorostilbon ricordii bracei , thereby drawing attention to the differences between Chlorostilbon ricordii and Chlorostilbon bracei for the first time . In contrast to the Cuban breed, the specimen from New Providence was smaller, had a longer beak, and had different plumage. In 1982 the two paleontologists William Hilgartner and Storrs Lovejoy Olson found fossil bones from the Pleistocene of three different species of hummingbird during research in a cave on New Providence . The three species were the fossil giant hummingbird Philodice evelynae , Chlorostilbon ricordii, and a species that was later identified as Chlorostilbon bracei . Since the bones found in Chlorostilbon ricordii and Chlorostilbon bracei differed greatly, evidence was provided that Brace had discovered a new species of bird that had lived on New Providence since the Pleistocene. They formed a relic population and probably died out due to habitat loss and human disturbance in the late 19th century.

literature

  • Lawrence, GN (1877). Descriptions of new species of birds of the families Trochilidae and Tetraonidae. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vol. 1: 50-52. ( Online , first scientific description as Sporadinus bracei )
  • Olson, Storrs L. & Hilgartner, WB (1982). Fossil and subfossil birds from the Bahamas. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 48: 22-56. ( Online )
  • Graves, Gary R., & Olson, Storrs L. (1987). Chlorostilbon bracei Lawrence, an extinct species of hummingbird from New Providence Island, Bahamas. The Auk 104: 296-302 ( online )
  • Flannery, Tim & Schouten, Peter: A Gap in Nature Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87113-797-6 , p. 70
  • Michael Walters & Julian Pender Hume: Extinct Birds . Poiser Monographes (A&C Black), 2012. ISBN 978-140-815-725-1 . P. 206.

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