Small Jamaican nightjar
| Small Jamaican nightjar | ||||||||||
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Little Jamaican nightjar (above) illustrated by Hans Sloane |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Siphonorhis americana | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The small Jamaican nightjar ( Siphonorhis americana ), also known as the Jamaican nightjar or Jamaican goat milker , is an extremely rare or probably extinct species of bird in the nightjar family . Even before the first specimen reached museums, the Jamaican Nightjar was mentioned in literature. Hans Sloane described and illustrated a bird in his 1707 work A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St Christophers, and Jamaica , which he called Noctua minor ex pallido et fusco varia (Small Wood-Owl). John Ray named the bird in his book Synopsis methodica avium in 1713 as Caprimulgus seu Noctua sylvatica Jamaycensis minor . Patrick Browne described the type in his 1756 work The civil and natural history of Jamaica. In three parts with Hirundo 2. Major subfusca miscella, maculâ alba sphaerica in ultrâque alâ (Lesser Goat-sucker). In 1758, Carl von Linné referred to the authors mentioned above in his animal systematics and described the small Jamaican nightjar as Caprimulgus americanus . Philip Lutley Sclater transferred the species to the new genus Siphonorhis in 1861 .
description
The small Jamaican nightjar reaches a length of 23 to 25 centimeters. In the male, the upper side is reddish-brown with black-brown shaft stripes. Broad black shaft stripes can be seen on the top of the head. The white throat ligament is characteristic. The elytra are reddish brown with brownish yellow spots on the tips. The back and rump are marked by black shaft stripes. The shoulder wings have large black spots and narrow whitish stripes. The wings of the hand are banded black-brown and irregularly red-brown. The outside flags are lighter. The control feathers are banded dirty red-brown and irregularly mottled and banded with dark brown. Each control pen is identified by a black-brown sub-terminal and a white terminal band. Throat and front chest are dark red-brown. The chest is dark brown with dirty white cross marks and feather tips. The underside is light fawn with dark brown bands. The female is a little paler and washed out. The control feathers have brownish yellow tips.
Habitat and way of life
The little Jamaican nightjar is strictly nocturnal and therefore easy to miss. It probably breeds on the ground. Little is known about their habitat. It probably occurs in the limestone forest or in the open, semi-arid woodland on the south side of Jamaica. Their diet consists of insects.
status
Today, four museum specimens of the Little Jamaican Nightjar are known, which were found in 1844, 1858, 1859 and 1860. The first male was collected in 1844, another male at Savana-la-Mar in Westmoreland Parish in August 1858 and a female at Freeman's Hall near Albert Town in September 1859. A final male was collected in November 1860 near Linstead in the Spanish Town region He puts.
Deforestation and invasive predators such as mongooses (introduced in 1872), rats, dogs, cats and pigs are suspected as possible causes for their disappearance.
In 1980 sightings of unidentified night swallows were reported on the Milk River and in the Hellshire Hills. For this reason the Little Jamaican Nightjar is listed by the IUCN in the category “ critically endangered, possibly extinct” .
literature
- James C. Greenway: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications, 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 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world . Westarp Sciences, 1986, ISBN 3-89432-213-6 .
- Walton Beacham: World Wildlife Fund Guide to Extinct Species of Modern Times . 1997, ISBN 0-933833-40-7 .
- J. Del Hoyo, A. Elliot, J. Sargatal (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World . Volume 5: Barn-Owls to Hummingbirds . Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 1999, ISBN 84-87334-25-3 .
- Erik Hirschfeld: The Rarebirds Yearbook 2008 . MagDig Media, Shrewsbury 2007, ISBN 978-0-9552607-3-5 .
Web links
- Siphonorhis americana in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 30 of 2009.