Hermit green-clothes bird
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Hermit green-clad bird ( Hemignathus sagittirostris ) |
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| Hemignathus sagittirostris | ||||||||||||
| ( Rothschild , 1892) |
The hermit green-clad bird ( Hemignathus sagittirostris , syn .: Viridonia sagittirostris ), also known as the Great Amakihi , is an extinct bird species from the tribe of the honeysuckle . It occurred on the island of Hawaii .
features
The Hermit Green Clothes Bird was a medium-sized clothes bird that reached a size of 17 centimeters. The long, almost straight beak had a sharp point. The plumage was mostly monochrome olive-green, a little darker on the back and more yellowish on the throat and chest. There were narrow black reins between the eyes and beak. The beak and legs were black. The base of the mandible was light blue. The sexes looked the same. The call was a high, clear, repetitive chirrup .
Occurrence and habitat
The range of the hermit green-clad bird was limited to a few square kilometers on the Wailuku River in northeastern Hawaii. It occurred in rainforests at altitudes between 600 and 1,200 m.
Way of life
Little is known about his way of life. He fed mainly on grasshoppers of the genus Panatrigonidium of beetles, caterpillars and spiders and pecking his food from beef columns of 'Ōhi'a -tree, from the leaf axils of IEIE Vine ( Freycinetia arborea ) or fern leaves.
die out
The hermit green-clad bird was discovered in 1892 and was already considered very rare by 1895. In 1900 Henry Wetherbee Henshaw collected several copies. The last specimen was spotted by AM Woolcott in 1901 on the Kaiwiki River north of the Wailuku River. The main cause of the extinction is the destruction of the forests by the sugar cane industry .
literature
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world , 4th edition (Die neue Brehm-Bücherei 424). Westarp Sciences, Magdeburg; Spectrum, Heidelberg, 1996. ISBN 3-89432-213-6
- Pratt, Harold Douglas: The Hawaiian Honeycreepers . Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-854653-5 .
Web links
- BirdLife Species factsheet
- Viridonia sagittirostris inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2013.