Kosrae Moorhen
| Kosrae Moorhen | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Porzana monasa | ||||||||||
| ( Kittlitz , 1858) |
The Kosrae Crake ( Porzana monasa ), also known as Caroline Ralle called, is an extinct bird from the family of rallidae . It occurred on the island of Kosrae, which belongs to the Caroline Islands, and probably also on the island of Ponape in the southwestern Pacific . Its preferred habitat were coastal swamps and marshes with taro ( Colocasia esculenta ) vegetation .
description
It was discovered by Heinrich von Kittlitz in 1827 and first described as Rallus monasa in 1858 . Von Kittlitz described the plumage as generally black with a blue sheen. The quills were a little more brown. The face and the center of the throat were brown. The surface of the tail was black-brown. The under tail-coverts had white spots. The inner wing covers were brownish and spotted white. The outer edge of the first hand wing was pale brown. Irises, legs and feet and were reddish in color. The beak was black. The length was 18 cm. There are uncertain data about its ability to fly. X-ray measurements of the Carpometacarpii suggest that it was flightless. Its native name nay-tay-mai-not , however, translates as “those who land in taro”, which in turn could indicate a limited ability to fly.
die out
The Kosrae Moorhen is known only from two specimens that were shot by Heinrich von Kittlitz in the marshes of Kosrae in December 1827 and are now in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg . The story of its disappearance is very similar to that of the Kosrae Singstar (another extinct species of Kosrae bird). Von Kittlitz reported that this bird was seldom encountered as early as 1828 and its call was seldom heard. In 1880 the German ornithologist Otto Finsch could no longer detect the Kosrae moorhen and the Whitney expedition of the American Museum of Natural History in 1931 was unsuccessful in their search for this species. Due to its presumed inability to fly, it was apparently an easy target for rats who escaped missionary or whaling ships during the 1830s and 1840s and spread to Kosrae.
swell
- ↑ David Day (1981). "The Doomsday Book of Animals", p. 87, Ebury Press, London, ISBN 0670279870
literature
- Greenway, James (1967): Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World, Dover Publications Inc. New York, ISBN 0-486-21869-4
- Errol Fuller (2000). "Extinct Birds", ISBN 0-8160-1833-2
- Flannery, Tim & Schouten, Peter (2001). A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. ISBN 0871137976 .
- David Day (1981). "The Doomsday Book of Animals", Ebury Press, London, ISBN 0670279870
Web links
- Zapornia monasa in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 30 of 2009.