Lord Howe cuckoo owl
| Lord Howe cuckoo owl | ||||||||||||
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Lord Howe Cuckoo Owl, from The Birds of Australia . Picture by Henrik Grönvold (1858–1940). |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ninox novaeseelandiae albaria | ||||||||||||
| ( Ramsay , 1888) |
The Lord Howe cuckoo owl ( Ninox novaeseelandiae albaria ) is an extinct subspecies of the New Zealand cuckoo owl . It was endemic to Lord Howe Island .
features
The Lord Howe cuckoo owl looked very similar to the nominate form . He reached a size of 30 to 35 centimeters. The wing length was 209 to 215 millimeters in the males and 218 to 222 millimeters in the females. The overall reddish-brown plumage was spotted. The head was dull reddish brown with pale whitish over eyebrows, which extended to the face veil and formed an X-shaped mark. The top was light reddish brown, evenly colored like the head and speckled with white. The underside, pants and upper wings were light reddish brown with small white spots. There were no spots on the head or buttocks. Few white spots could be seen on the hidden parts of the rump and the upper tail. The beak was dark slate gray. The eyes were golden yellow. The legs and feet were greenish yellow.
Way of life
The Lord Howe cuckoo owl inhabited forests on Lord Howe Island. There are no records of his way of life and his walks.
die out
The exact time of the extinction is unknown. After the shipwreck of the SS Makambo off Lord Howe Island in 1918, a plague of rats broke out on the island. In the 1920s, several species of owls were introduced to Lord Howe Island to combat the plague, including cuckoo owls from Australia and the New Holland owl . The Lord Howe cuckoo owl was probably never particularly common. He fell victim to both the stalking by the rats and the competition with the introduced owls. Cuckoo owl calls were last heard on Lord Howe Island in the 1950s, but it was not possible to determine which taxon these calls belonged to.
literature
- Claus König & Friedhelm Weick: Owls of the World. 2nd Edition. Christopher Helm, London 2008. ISBN 978-0-7136-6548-2
- Edward Pierson Ramsay: Catalog of the Australian Striges or Nocturnal Birds of Prey in the Collection of the Australian Museum at Sydney, NSW , 1890
- Higgins, PJ (Editor): Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 4: Parrots to Dollarbird. Oxford University Press: Melbourne, 1999. ISBN 0-19-553071-3