Maui Akepa coat bird
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Maui Akepa hawk bird ( Loxops ochraceus ) |
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| Loxops ochraceus | ||||||||||||
| Rothschild , 1893 |
The Maui Akepakleidervogel ( Loxops ochraceus ) is a most likely extinct songbird species from the genus of Akepakleidervögel ( Loxops ) within the tribe of the honeysuckle . He was native to the east of the Hawaiian island of Maui .
features
The Maui Akepa hawk bird was a small hawk bird at four inches tall and had a conical beak. The halves of the beak were crossed at the tip. There are two color morphs in the plumage of the males. The yellow color morph was bright mustard yellow, the red color morph was characterized by a red-orange color. The wings of the hand, the wings of the arm, the wing covers and the tail feathers were dark brown with yellow borders. The iris was dark brown. The beak was light gray to straw yellow and sometimes had a dark tip. The legs were black.
The females were dull gray-green, darker on the top of the head and on the back. The wings and tail were dark brown-gray with gray-green borders. Some specimens had a yellowish tinge on the throat and upper chest. The juvenile birds looked similar to the females, but they lacked the yellow component on the throat. There is hardly any information available about the vocalizations, the call is said to have been similar to that of the Hawaiian Akepa bird ( Loxops coccineus ).
habitat
The Maui akepa hogweed inhabited both rainforests dominated by ironwoods and koa acacia and dry koa acacia forests.
Way of life
The Maui Akepa honeycreeper was a resident bird . Caterpillars, insects and spiders made of the main constituents of the food that it with the aid of its asymmetric beak by scanning the bound together with spider or crawler silk sheets Ohia -Trees or Koa acacia or captured by poking in the bud scales. Nectar from the ohia flowers was seldom absorbed. The only observations on reproductive behavior were made in 1903. A possible courtship flight, similar to that of the Hawaiian Akepa bird, was documented and a couple built a nest in an ohia tree. The nesting material consisted of pulu , a fibrous or downy product of tree ferns of the genus Cibotium .
status
According to a final record in 1988, the Maui Akepa hawk bird is considered most likely extinct. Possible audio recordings made during search expeditions in the 1990s are unconfirmed and searches for the species have remained inconclusive. All 62 specimens in the museum collections were collected between 1879 and 1900. Before Maui was settled by humans, the Maui Akepa Dresser bird was believed to have spread across Maui, but since the 1880s its occurrence has been limited to the upper elevations of the Haleakalā volcano. The last observations were made there on the north and east slopes.
Systematics
The Maui Akepa bird was at times considered a subspecies of the Hawaiian Akepa bird. However, on the basis of DNA analyzes and differences in plumage color and nesting behavior, the American ornithologist Harold Douglas Pratt was able to prove in 2001 that the Maui Akepa bird is an independent species.
literature
- Harold Douglas Pratt : The Hawaiian Honeycreepers . Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-854653-5 .
- Harold Douglas Pratt: Drepanididae (Hawaiian Honeycreepers). In: Del Hoyo, J .; Elliot, A. & Christie D. (Editors): Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 15: Weavers to New World Warblers . Lynx Edicions, 2010, ISBN 978-84-96553-68-2
Individual evidence
- ^ Pratt, HD, and TK Pratt. 2001: The interplay of species concepts, taxonomy, and conservation: lessons from the Hawaiian avifauna. Studies in Avian Biology 22: pp. 68-80