Palmer's parrot
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Palmer's parrot ( Rhodacanthis palmeri ) |
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| Rhodacanthis palmeri | ||||||||||||
| Rothschild , 1892 |
Greater Koa Finch ( Rhodacanthis palmeri ), sometimes called Big Koafink called, is an extinct Singvogelart of the subfamily of clothes birds . It was endemic to the Kona district on Hawaii's main island, the Big Island . The species epithet honors Henry C. Palmer, a bird collector who worked on behalf of Walter Rothschild and was murdered in Australia in 1894.
features
At eight inches (23 centimeters), Palmer's parrot's beak was the largest species of honeycreeper. Characteristic was the beak similar to the hornbill, the ridge of which was 17 to 21 mm long. The wing length was 92 to 110 mm, the tail length 55 to 72 mm and the barrel length 24 mm. In the male, the head and throat were deep scarlet, but sometimes more yellowish. The top of the head had a golden sheen, but it faded soon after the bird died. The upper breast was dull reddish-orange, the belly was dull orange-yellow and the under tail-coverts light yellow. The back was greenish olive-brown, the rump was washed out orange. The outer plumes of the feathers had yellowish seams. The axillary feathers and the under wing-coverts were gray-olive with an orange wash. The beak was blue-gray, legs and feet were black. In the female, the upper side was olive brownish green. The forehead was yellowish. The rump and tail-coverts were yellowish green. The chest and middle of the abdomen were white with a greenish wash.
distribution and habitat
Palmer's parrot originally lived in all of the semi-arid koa acacia forests on the main island of Hawaii . The centerpiece of the original habitat was the koa acacia belt between 900 and 1200 m north and south of the crater of the Pu'u Lehua . Further occurrences were observed on the windward slope of Mauna Kea and on Mauna Loa in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park .
die out
Palmer's parrot were discovered by George Campbell Munro and Henry C. Palmer in 1891 . In 1896 the species was last detected by Robert Cyril Layton Perkins . In 1906 a search by Henry W. Henshaw was unsuccessful, but in 1937 the ornithologist Walter R. Donagho claims to have heard another copy in the Kona district, which, however, remained unconfirmed.
Palmer's parrot began to decline in the 1850s when the koa acacia forests above 1,220 m were replaced by pastureland. The grazing cattle prevented the regeneration of the original vegetation. Further reasons for the disappearance of the species were the stalking by house rats as well as the birdpox and the bird malaria.
Today there are 65 bellows in the museum collections.
literature
- Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds. Oxford University Press 2000, ISBN 0-8160-1833-2 .
- Harold Douglas Pratt : The Hawaiian Honeycreepers. Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-854653-5 .
- Winston E. Banko : Avian History Report 10. Part 1. Population Histories-Species Accounts, Forest birds: Maui Parrotbill, 'O'u, Palila, Greater Koa Finch, Lesser Koa Finch and Grosbreak Finch. 1986, pp. 93-97, 113-118 ( PDF file ).
- Helen Frances James , Jonathan P. Price: Integration of palaeontological, historical, and geographical data on the extinction of koa-finches. In: Diversity & Distributions. Volume 14, No. 3, 2008, S 441–451, doi : 10.1111 / j.1472-4642.2007.00442.x ( PDF file; 346 kB ).
Web links
- Rhodacanthis palmeri in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2013.2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2013.