Mascarene coot

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Mascarene coot
Fulica newtoni.jpg

Mascarene coot ( Fulica newtonii )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Crane birds (Gruiformes)
Family : Rallen (Rallidae)
Genre : Coots ( Fulica )
Type : Mascarene coot
Scientific name
Fulica newtonii
Milne-Edwards , 1867

The Mascarene Coot ( Fulica newtonii ) is an extinct species of bird in the family of Rails . It is only known from four travel reports and from subfossil bone material. The distribution area was limited to Mauritius and Réunion . The type epithet honors either Alfred Newton or Edward Newton , who both studied this bird.

features

In 1674 the French abbot and traveler Sieur Dubois wrote in his report "Les Voyages" that the moorhens (French Poules d'eau) from the island of Bourbon ( Réunion ) reached almost the size of the domestic fowl. The plumage was completely black and there was a large white forehead shield on the head. The type material from the Mare aux Songes deposit on Mauritius includes 16 tibia bones , 30 metatarsal bones , 8 humerus bones , 2 breast bones , 4 pelvis fragments, a completely preserved pelvis, a completely preserved sacrum and 3 cervical vertebrae . It is kept in the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring . Further material has been unearthed since 1974 in the Grotte des Premiers Francais , Grotte de l'Autel and Marais de l'Ermitage deposits on Réunion.

Way of life

The Mascarene coot was flightless, but it was a good runner and swimmer. It never wandered far from the lakes and watercourses. The nests were built on the banks' edges.

die out

When François Martin first visited Réunion in 1665 , he noticed that “the river basin at Saint-Gilles was populated with geese and moorhens, and the depths were full of fish. The familiarity of moorhens allowed that one close enough to them came up to them to grab with his bare hands. "Two years later, wrote Martin," that the geese and moorhens, often once in the lagoon of Saint-Paul occurred, no longer existed. ”In a travel report from 1708 François Leguat wrote that“ the moorhens were very rare in Mauritius in 1693 ”. Shortly afterwards the Mascarene Coot disappeared. Presumably overhunting and the destruction of the wetlands contributed to the extinction of the species.

Systematics

In 1867 Alphonse Milne-Edwards first described this taxon as Fulica newtonii on the basis of subfossil bone material from the island of Mauritius. In an article on this species from 1893, the English ornithologist Henry Ogg Forbes was of the opinion that the mascarene coot and the also extinct Chatham coot ( Fulica chathamensis ) were identical and created the new genus Palaeolimnas with Palaeolimnas newtoni for both taxa as the only representative. In 1896, Charles William Andrews demonstrated the differences between the Mascarene coot and the Chatham coot, but retained the genus Palaeolimnas for both species. During a reconsideration of Forbes' nomenclature in 1962, the paleontologists Elliot W. Dawson and Pierce Brodkorb found that the genus description for Palaeolimnas is based on the skull characteristics of the Chatham coot and therefore transferred this taxon to the new genus along with the New Zealand coot Nesophalaris . The Mascarene coot was moved back to the genus Fulica and the name Palaeolimnas was deleted. The paleontologist Storrs Olson suspects that both Fulica newtoni and Fulica chathamensis descended from the common coot ( Fulica atra ) and that their size and flightlessness developed independently of one another. Since 1975 the Chatham coot and the New Zealand coot have also been in the genus Fulica .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Quoted in A. Lougnon (1970)
  2. ↑ Leguat (1708): p. 71
  3. ↑ Milne-Edwards (1867): pp. 195-220
  4. ^ HO Forbes (1893): pp. 521-546
  5. ^ CW Andrews (1896). Pp. 261-271.
  6. ^ Dawson & Brodkorb (1962): p. 267-269
  7. ↑ a b Olson (1975): pp. 63-79

literature

  • Henry Ogg Forbes (1893): A list of the birds inhabiting the Chatham Islands . The Ibis, Series 6, Volume 5: p. 521-546.
  • Charles William Andrews (1896): On the extinct birds of the Chatham Islands. Part 2. The osteology of Palaeolimnas chathamensis and Nesolimnas (gen. Nov.) Dieffenbachi . In: Novitates Zoologicae Volume 3: S. 261-271.
  • Elliot W. Dawson & Pierce Brodkorb (1962): Nomenclature of Quaternary Coots from Oceanic Islands In The Auk. Volume 79: pp. 267-269
  • François Leguat (1708): Voyages et Avantures de François Leguat & de ses Compagnons, en Deux Isles Desertes des Indes Orientales, etc. 2: 71. Jean Louis de Lorme, Amsterdam. PDF full text available from Gallica: Enter "Leguat" in the search mask.
  • Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1867): Mémoire sur une espèce éteinte du genre Fulica . Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool. (Paris) 5 (8): pp. 195-220, plates 10-13
  • Sieur Dubois: Les voyages faits par le sievr DB aux isles Dauphine ou Madagascar, & Bourbon, ou Mascarenne, és années 1669, 70, 71, & 72: dans laquelle il est curieusement traité du cap Vert de la ville de Surate des isles de Sainte Helene, ou de l'Ascension: ensemble les moeurs, religions, forces, gouvernemens & coûtumes des habitans desdites isles, avec l'histoire naturelle du païs. Paris: Chez Claude Barbin , 1674.
  • Albert Lougnon (1970): Sous le signe de la tortue: Voyages anciens à l'île Bourbon (1611-1725) . 3. Edition. Saint Denis.
  • Samuel Pasfield Oliver (1891): The voyage of Francois Leguat of Bresse, to Rodriguez, Mauritius, Java, and the Cape of Good Hope
  • 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 0874748046
  • Anthony Cheke & Julian Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo . T. & AD Poyser, 2008, ISBN 0-7136-6544-0 .
  • Storrs Lovejoy Olson (1975): A review of the extinct rails of the New Zealand region (Aves: Rallidae) National Museum of New Zealand Records, 1 (3): p. 63-79
  • 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: S. 1-38. 1999
  • Rothschild, Walter (1907): Extinct Birds

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