Nesotrochis debooyi

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Nesotrochis debooyi
Leg and foot bones of Nesotrochis debooyi

Leg and foot bones of Nesotrochis debooyi

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Crane birds (Gruiformes)
Family : Rallen (Rallidae)
Genre : Nesotrochis
Type : Nesotrochis debooyi
Scientific name
Nesotrochis debooyi
Wetmore , 1918

Nesotrochis debooyi is an extinct species of railing that was found in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands .

Discovery and Description

In July 1916, the American archaeologist Theodoor de Booy discovered the thighbones and tibiotarsi of a previously unknown, extinct species of railing in clam pile deposits in Richmond near Christiansted on Saint Croix , which was scientifically described by Alexander Wetmore in 1918 . Subsequently, further bones of this rail were found in caves on Saint Thomas and Puerto Rico , which contained humeri as well as remains of the pelvis , sacrum and metatarsal bone . The very thin nature of the humeri suggests that Nesotrochis debooyi was flightless . Wetmore suspected a close relationship between the genera Nesotrochis and Aramides , although Nesotrochis debooyi differed from the claws of the genus Aramides in terms of stronger legs and weak wings . Nesotrochis debooyi was about the size of a small domestic chicken .

die out

The meat was so popular with the Arawak Indians that they raised this rail, which originally only existed in Puerto Rico, in captivity and brought it to the Virgin Islands. The rails were hunted with dogs, and it was evidently very easy to grab with your hands. It is generally believed that Nesotrochis debooyi probably died out in pre-Columbian times in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, but records of an easy-to-catch bird called carrao , which Alexander Wetmore caught in Puerto Rico in 1912 , may refer to this bird. Today the name carrao is mainly used for the black-wheeled crane .

Systematics and nomenclature

Nesotrochis debooyi was long considered the only representative of the genus Nesotrochis . In 1971, the German paleontologists Burkhard Stephan and Karlheinz Fischer described the fossil remains of a hitherto unknown billy from the island of Cuba and initially named it Fulica picapicensis . In 1974 Storrs Lovejoy Olson recognized the close relationship between the Cuban form, another extinct rail from the island of Hispaniola with the name Nesotrochis steganinos and Nesotrochis debooyi , and then wrote a revision of the genus Nesotrochis . The archaeologist Theodoor de Booy is honored with the specific epithet .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Wetmore: Bird Remains from the Caves of Porto Rico. Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. Vol. XLVI, 1922
  2. ^ A b c d Alexander Wetmore: Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Volume 9, parts 1-4. New York Academy of Sciences, 1919.
  3. ^ Charles Arthur Woods, Florence Etienne Sergile: Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives. CRC Press, 2001.
  4. ↑ St. Croix Wildlife (St. Croix Environmental Information Repository) - Waterfowl, Marsh Birds & Shore Birds ( Memento from December 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

literature

  • Alexander Wetmore: Bones of birds collected by Theodoor de Booy from Kitchen Midden deposits in the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix In: Proceedings of the United States National Museum 54, 2245 : pp. 513-522, 1918
  • Kálmán Lambrecht: Handbook of Palaeornithology. Borntraeger brothers, Berlin. 1933
  • Storrs Olson: A new species of Nesotrochis from Hispaniola, with notes on other fossil rails from the West Indies (Aves: Rallidae) In: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 87, 38: pp. 439-450, 1974
  • 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