Lord Howe spectacle bird
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Lord Howe Spectacle Bird ( Zosterops strictuus ) |
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| Gould , 1855 |
The Lord Howe spectacled bird ( Zosterops strictuus , syn .: Zosterops strictua ) is an extinct species of bird from the spectacled family . It was endemic to Lord Howe Island .
description
The Lord Howe spectacle bird reached a length of 13 centimeters. The top, the head and the neck sides were dark olive green. The coat was olive gray. A wide white eye ring ran around the light brown iris. A dull black line of rein was visible under the eyes. The chin, throat, tails, and thighs were pale sulfur yellow. The rest of the underside was isabel brown, the flanks were darker. The middle of the abdomen was whitish like the under wing-coverts. The beak was horn black and the feet dark gray.
Way of life
The breeding season of the Lord Howe Spectacled Bird was from November to December. The bowl-shaped nest was 10 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters deep. It was erected in a fork of branches made of fine roots and grass and padded with soft plant material. The clutch consisted of two to three blue eggs. The diet of the Lord Howe spectacle bird consisted of fruits and cereals. Because it frequently invaded the fruit trees and fields, it was viewed as a nuisance by farmers.
die out
The Lord Howe spectacled bird was wiped out within five years by house rats who escaped from the stranded ship SS Makambo in 1918 . In later search expeditions in 1928 and 1936 it could no longer be detected.
literature
- James C. Greenway: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., 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. A Natural History of Vanished Species . Viking Press, New York NY 1981, ISBN 0-670-27987-0 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world . Westarp Sciences, 1986, ISBN 3-89432-213-6 .
- Otto Finsch: Zosteropidae (Volume 15) . 1901.
Web links
- BirdLife factsheet
- Lord Howe spectacle bird in the Naturalis Museum
- Zosterops strictuus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 5, 2013.