Delalande silk cuckoo
| Delalande silk cuckoo | ||||||||||||
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Delalande silk cuckoo ( Coua delalandei ) |
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| Coua delalandei | ||||||||||||
| ( Temminck , 1827) |
The Delalande silk cuckoo ( Coua delalandei ) is an extinct species of cuckoo from the genus of the silk cuckoo or couas. It is named after the French naturalist Pierre Antoine Delalande .
description
The Delalande silk cuckoo reached a size of 56 centimeters. The wing length was 217 to 226 mm. The tail was very long at 256 to 300 mm. The top was dark blue, the bottom white and chestnut colored. The head was dark purple. The bare, light blue skin of the face was surrounded by a black wreath of feathers. The back was blue. The tail was blue with a greenish tinge. The outer tail feathers had white tips. The throat and upper chest were white, the belly chestnut-colored. The bill, legs and feet were black. The iris was brown. Like the other species of silkworms, it was not parasitic.
distribution and habitat
The Delalande silk cuckoo was endemic to the tropical rainforest on the island of Nosy Boraha (fr .: Île Sainte-Marie) northeast of Madagascar . It was never detected on the Malagasy mainland itself.
food
The diet of the Delalande silk cuckoo consisted of giant African snails of the genus Achatina . To open the snail shell, the cuckoo hit it with its beak against a stone until it broke.
die out
The last known specimen of the Delalande silk cuckoo was collected by JA Bernier in 1834 for the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris . Habitat destruction and overhunting are believed to be the main reasons for its extinction. The cuckoos were hunted for their coveted feathers by being caught in snares. After rumors about the continued existence of the Delalande silk cuckoo in the regions of Fito and Maroantsetra surfaced in the 1920s, the French zoologist Louis Lavauden undertook a search in 1932, which however failed. In 1937 the species was finally declared "extinct" at the suggestion of the ornithologist Austin Loomer Rand . Today there are 13 stuffed specimens in museums in London, Paris, Leiden, Liverpool, New York, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Brussels, Tananarive, Stuttgart and Vienna.
literature
- Robert B. Payne: The Cuckoos. Bird Families of the World. Volume 15 , Oxford University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-19-850213-3
- James C. Greenway: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., New York 1967, ISBN 0-486-21869-4 .
- Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds . 2000, ISBN 0-8160-1833-2 .
- David Day: The Doomsday Book of Animals . Ebury Press, London 1981, ISBN 0-670-27987-0 .
- Tim Flannery & Peter Schouten: A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2001. ISBN 0-87113-797-6
Web links
- Museum Naturalis - Snail-eating Coua
- Coua delalandei in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on December 22 of 2008.