Leguats Moorhen
| Leguats Moorhen | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||
| Erythromachus | ||||||||||
| Milne-Edwards, 1873 | ||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||
| Erythromachus leguati | ||||||||||
| Milne-Edwards , 1873 |
Leguat's Moorhen ( Erythromachus leguati ), also known as Leguat's rail or Rodrigues' rail , is an extinct, flightless species of rail. It was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues . The art epithet honors François Leguat , a traveler who landed on Rodrigues with a group of Huguenots in 1691 and stayed there for two years.
features
Leguat's moorhen was a clumsy, flightless rail with light gray plumage, red legs, a red beak, and red facial skin. Leguat described this species, which he called Gelinote, in 1708 (English translation by Hugh Edwin Strickland and Alexander Gordon Melville in 1848) as follows:
“Our gelinotes (pond claws) are fat all year round and have a very delicate taste. Their coloring is always a light gray and there is little difference in the plumage of the two sexes. They hide their nests so well that we couldn't find them and consequently couldn't try their eggs. They have a red border around the eyes. Their beaks are straight and pointed, nearly two inches (50.8 mm) long, and also red. You can't fly. Their fat makes them too heavy for that. If you showed them anything red they would get so wild they would attack you and snatch it out of your hand. In the heat of the moment, we had the opportunity to grab them with ease. "
Way of life
There is a travel report by Julien Tafforet from 1726 about the appearance and way of life of Leguat's Moorhen, which was translated into English by Alfred Newton in 1875 . Tafforet wrote:
“There are a variety of birds the size of a young hen with red beak and feet. Their beak is somewhat reminiscent of a curlew, except that it is a little thicker and not quite as long. The plumage is spotted white and gray. They commonly feed on tortoise eggs, which they find on the ground, which make them so fat that they often have difficulty walking. They are very good to eat and their fat is yellowish-red in color. They have small wings without feathers that prevent them from flying. On the other hand, they can run very well. Her reputation is a constant whistle. When pursued, they make a different type of sound, like that of a person who has hiccups. "
die out
When the astronomer Alexandre Guy Pingré visited Rodrigues in 1761 to observe the Venus transit , he noticed that Leguats Moorhen was already extinct. Its rapid disappearance between 1726 and 1761 suggests that introduced cats were the main culprits for the extinction. The severe deforestation caused by turtle hunters from 1735 onwards could also have contributed significantly to the decline of the species. Large areas of forest were burned down to collect the giant tortoises of the genus Cylindraspis .
Systematics
Alphonse Milne-Edwards described Leguats Moorhen both on the basis of travel reports and on the basis of subfossil bone material that was unearthed in the caves of the Plaine Corail on Rodrigues. From this he concluded that there was once a flightless rail on Rodrigues, which was related to the also extinct Mauritius rail ( Aphanapteryx bonasia ). Milne-Edwards proposed the new genus Erythromachus . However, when new bone material became known, Albert Günther and Edward Newton placed them in the genus Aphanapteryx in 1879. In 1977, Storrs Lovejoy Olson suggested that Leguats moorhen be returned to the genus Erythromachus . He justified this with the noticeable differences in the skeleton. Cécile Mourer-Chauviré followed Olson's view in 1999. As with the Mauritius rail, the beak was different in curvature and the pronounced sexual dimorphism in size was evident on the skeleton.
Individual evidence
- ^ HE Strickland & AG Melville (1848): Affinities of the Solitaire In: The Dodo and Its Kindred; or the History, Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire and Other Extinct Birds of the Islands of Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon. London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve: S. 55
- ^ François Leguat: Voyages et aventures de François Leguat et de ses compagnons en deux isles désertes des Indes orientales. 2 volumes, David Mortier, London 1708
- ↑ Julien Tafforet (1726) Relation de l'lle Rodrigue , Alfred Newton (1875, translation) Additional Evidence as to the Original Fauna of Rodriguez In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London : S. 39-43
- ↑ Alexandre Guy Pingré (1763): Voyage à l'île Rodrigue
- ↑ Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1873): Recherches sur la faune ancienne des Îles Mascareignes. Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool. (Paris) 5 (19), Article 3, plates 11-12.
- ^ Albert Günther & Edward Newton (1879). The extinct birds of Rodriguez . In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 168: p. 423-437.
- ↑ Storrs Olson: A synopsis on the fossil Rallidae In: Sidney Dillon Ripley: Rails of the World - A Monograph of the Family Rallidae. Codline. Boston 1977, ISBN 0-87474-804-6 .
- ^ Cécile Mourer-Chauviré, Roger Bour, Sonia Ribes & François Moutou: The avifauna of Réunion Island (Mascarene Islands) at the time of the arrival of the first Europeans. In: Avian Paleontology at the Close of the 20th Century: Proceedings of the 4th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution. Washington, DC, June 4-7, 1996. Storrs L. Olson (Ed.) 89: p. 1-38. 1999
literature
- Michael P. Walters & Julian Pender Hume: Extinct Birds , Poyser Monographes A & C Black, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4081-5725-1 , p. 110
- Anthony S. Cheke, Julian Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo. An Ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues. T & AD Poyser, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4 .