Hemignathus upupirostris
| Hemignathus upupirostris | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hemignathus upupirostris | ||||||||||||
| Olson & James , 1991 |
Hemignathus upupirostris ( Syn . : Akialoa upupirostris ) is an extinct species of bird from the genus Hemignathus within the tribe of honeysuckles . The type epithet is derived from the convergent resemblance to the lower beak of a hoopoe ( Upupa epops ).
Hemignathus upupirostris was initially known only by subfossiles bone material from a lower jaw missing link ends and two lower jaw symphysefragmenten there. The type localities in which the material was found in 1976 are the Makawehi Dunes on Kauaʻi and Barbers Point on Oʻahu . Subsequently, a skull with an upper jaw and a damaged palatal bone was unearthed in the Mahaʻulepu Cave on Kauai. The age of the bones is estimated to be over 6000 years.
An undescribed species with similarities in beak morphology to Hemignathus upupirostris is known from a damaged lower jaw from the island of Maui.
features
Hemignathus upupirostris has a very long, thin and downwardly curved lower jaw, which has similarities with the lower jaws of the recently extinct Akialoa species of Oʻahu, Kauaʻi, Lanaʻi and Hawaiʻi. Of all the other dresses birds differs hemignathus upupirostris by the lack of a tongue trough in the mandibular symphysis . This presumably indicates a shorter tongue.
literature
- Olson, Storrs L .; James, Helen F. (1991): Descriptions of Thirty-Two New Species of Birds from the Hawaiian Islands: Part II. Passeriformes . Ornithological Monographs 46: 1-91. PDF online .
- Harold Douglas Pratt : The Hawaiian Honeycreepers . Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-854653-X .
- Helen F. James: The osteology and phylogeny of the Hawaiian finch radiation (Fringillidae: Drepanidini), including extinct taxa. In: Linnean Society of London , Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2004, No. 141: p. 207-255