Magnificent moho
| Magnificent moho | ||||||||||||
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Moho ( Moho nobilis ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Moho nobilis | ||||||||||||
| ( Merrem , 1786) |
The Moho ( Moho nobilis ), also known as Hawaiian Krausschwanz or Hawaiʻi ʻŌʻō , is a species of bird from the extinct genus of the curly tail .
description
The magnificent moho was first described by Blasius Merrem as Gracula nobilis in 1786 .
The males reached a length of 32 cm, the females were about 24 cm long. The wing length was between 11.0 and 11.5 centimeters. The tail was 19 cm long. The plumage was mostly shiny black with a brownish shade on the belly. Characteristic were the bushy, deep yellow axillary feathers, the white outer tail feathers and the strongly elongated and spirally twisted central tail feathers. In the females, the middle tail feathers were generally shorter and less twisted. The iris was dark brown, the beak and feet were black. The yellow tufts of feathers were missing from the young birds.
habitat
Its habitat were the upper tree regions of the mountain forests on the largest island of Hawaii .
Way of life
The magnificent moho was a shy, lively bird that inhabited the treetops in small flocks. A quick, humming sound was heard in flight. He lived mainly on the blossom honey of the tree parasitic Hawaiian lobelia family of the genus Lobelia and the ʻŌhiʻa tree ( Metrosideros polymorpha ). His call was a deep tuck-tuck . Since eggs and nests have never been described, almost nothing is known about their breeding behavior.
die out
The royal moho was one of the species of bird that was hunted intensely for its plumage. The yellow armpit feathers in particular were their undoing because they were used to make the precious robes of the aristocratic classes. In 1891 and 1892 it was still frequently observed above the Kawoola and Kona districts, but in 1894 it could no longer be detected here. In other regions he survived longer. It was last heard on the slopes of Mauna Loa in 1934.
There are museum copies in several museums in the USA and in Europe, including Berlin , Dresden , Bremen and Hamburg in Germany .
literature
- James C. Greenway: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., New York 1967, ISBN 0-486-21869-4 .
- Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds . 2000, ISBN 0-8160-1833-2 .
- Tim Flannery, Peter Schouten: A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals . Atlantic Monthly Press, New York 2001, ISBN 0-87113-797-6 .
- David Day: The Doomsday Book of Animals . Ebury Press, London 1981, ISBN 0-670-27987-0 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world . Westarp Sciences, 1986, ISBN 3-89432-213-6 .
- Edwin Antonius: Lexicon of extinct birds and mammals . Natur und Tier Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-931587-76-2 .
Web links
- Naturalis - Hawaii 'O'o (English)
- Moho nobilis inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . 2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 1996. Retrieved December 14, 2013.