Huahine star
| Huahine star | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Aplonis diluvialis | ||||||||||||
| Steadman , 1989 |
The Huahine starling ( Aplonis diluvialis ) is an extinct songbird in the starling family . It was endemic to the Polynesian island of Huahine and thus had the easternmost range of all species of starling of the genus Aplonis occurring in Oceania . The Huahine star is only known from a subfossil tarsometatarsus , which was excavated in 1984 by the American archaeologist and anthropologist Yosihiko H. Sinoto of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in the Fa'ahia deposit in the north of Huahine and scientifically described in 1989 by David William Steadman . The bone has a length of 38 millimeters and a comparison with the tarsometatarsi of other species of the genus Aplonis suggests that the Huahine star was only surpassed in size by the Samoan star ( Aplonis atrifusca ). The extinction of the Huahine star is believed to be due to Polynesian settlers who cleared the forests between 750 and 1250 AD , brought in non-native plant species, and allowed rats and non-native bird species to spread to Huahine and introduce epidemics.
Steadman attaches great importance to the find as it has significantly expanded our knowledge of the distribution of the Aplonis species. According to Steadman, a drawing by Georg Forster from 1774 depicting a mysterious bird from the island of Raiatea (formerly called Ulieta) could not represent a species of thrush , as mistakenly believed , but a relative of the Huahine star, the starlings presumably not only occurred on Huahine, but also on the neighboring island of Raiatea, southwest of Huahine.
etymology
The type epithet refers to the Latin word "diluvium" for flood and denotes the fact that the layers of the Fa'ahia deposit are now soaked with groundwater and covered with sand collected by storm waves.
Individual evidence
- ↑ David W. Steadman: A new species of starling (Sturnidae, Aplonis) from an archaeological site on Huahine, Society Islands . Notornis 36 (1989): pp. 161-169
literature
- David W. Steadman: A new species of starling (Sturnidae, Aplonis) from an archaeological site on Huahine, Society Islands . Notornis 36 (1989): pp. 161–169 ( PDF, full text )
- David W. Steadman: Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds . University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 0-226-77142-3