North Island Snipe

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North Island Snipe
Coenocorypha barrierensis.jpg

North Island Snipe ( Coenocorypha barrierensis )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Plover-like (Charadriiformes)
Family : Snipe birds (Scolopacidae)
Genre : New Zealand woodcock ( Coenocorypha )
Type : North Island Snipe
Scientific name
Coenocorypha barrierensis
Oliver , 1955

The North Island snipe ( Coenocorypha barrierensis ), also known as the little barrier snipe , is an extinct species of wader belonging to the New Zealand woodcock . It was long considered a subspecies of the Auckland snipe ( Coenocorypha aucklandica ), but was split off from this as an independent species in 2002.

features

The North Island snipe reached a size of 19 to 24 cm and a weight of 90 g. The species differed from the also extinct South Island snipe ( Coenocorypha iredalei ) by a larger beige-white area on the chin and throat, by the lack of banding on the lower abdomen, by crescent-shaped markings on the upper abdomen and by a less reddish-brown plumage.

die out

Around 1820 a specimen of this species is said to have been shot for the first time on Browns Island (Motukorea) in the Hauraki Gulf . However, there is no verifiable evidence of this. In 1870, TB Hill presented the Auckland Museum with a specimen of the North Island snipe, which was caught by Captain Frederick Tiwha Bennett that same year when he docked with his schooner Mary Ann off Little Barrier Island . A second snipe caught escaped again. In addition to the bellows from Little Barrier Island, there are about 27 subfossil bones that were unearthed on New Zealand's North Island and are now kept in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington . On the North Island it was believed to be a victim of the first Polynesian settlers, on Little Barrier Island the North Island snipe died out in the 1870s due to the pursuit of Pacific rats and domestic cats .

literature

  • Colin M. Miskelly : The Little Barrier Island Snipe. In: Notornis, No. 35, 1988, pp. 273-281
  • Michael Walters & Julian Pender Hume: Extinct Birds. Poiser Monographes (A&C Black), 2012. ISBN 978-140-815-725-1 . P. 125.
  • A. Tennyson and P. Martinson: Extinct birds of New Zealand. Te Papa Press, 2006, ISBN 0-909010-21-8 , p. 94
  • Trevor H. Worthy , Richard N. Holdaway: The Lost World of the Moa. Prehistoric Life of New Zealand. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2002, ISBN 0-253-34034-9 , p. 410.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trevor H. Worthy, Colin M. Miskelly & Bob (R.) A. Ching (2002): Taxonomy of North and South Island snipe (Aves: Scolopacidae: Coenocorypha), with analysis of a remarkable collection of snipe bones from Greymouth, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 29: 3, pp. 231-244