Marianne glasses bird
| Marianne glasses bird | ||||||||||||
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Marianne |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Zosterops semiflavus | ||||||||||||
| Newton , 1867 |
The Marianne goggle bird ( Zosterops semiflavus ), formerly known as the Seychelles chestnut flank spectacle bird or Seychelles yolk breast spectacle bird , is an extinct songbird from the spectacled bird family (Zosteropidae). For a time it was considered a subspecies of the yolk breasted spectacled bird ( Zosterops mayottensis ), which occurs on the island of Mayotte .
description
It reached a size of 10 cm, the wing length was 5.8 to 6.3 cm, the tail length 3.8 cm and the beak length 1.1 to 1.2 cm. He was generally greenish yellow with maroon flanks and a conspicuous white eye ring. The forehead and a line over the eyes were yellow. The crown and the back were yellowish olive. The wings and tail were black and the underside was yolk yellow.
Way of life and distribution
Nothing is known about his way of life. According to the current state of knowledge, the Marianne glasses bird was only known from the small granite island Marianne in the Seychelles . Information that it also occurred on the islands of Praslin , La Digue , Silhouette and Mahé has not been confirmed.
die out
Due to the severe destruction of its habitat, it died out between 1870 and 1900 (according to IUCN 1888). A search expedition in 1940 by the Irish zoologist Leslie Desmond Edward Foster Vesey-Fitzgerald remained unsuccessful.
The type specimen , which was shot by William Louis Abbott in 1892 , is in the Natural History Museum in London and is the only known museum bellows.
literature
- James Cowan Greenway : Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., New York 1967, ISBN 0-486-21869-4 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world . 2005.