Puerto Rico Crow

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Puerto Rico Crow
Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Corvoidea
Family : Corvids (Corvidae)
Genre : Ravens and Crows ( Corvus )
Type : Puerto Rico Crow
Scientific name
Corvus pumilis
Wetmore , 1920

The Puerto Rican Crow ( Corvus pumilis ) is an extinct songbirds art from the family of corvids (Corvidae). She was a medium-sized representative of the ravens and crows and lived in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands . Little is known about the way of life of the species. It probably became extinct with human settlement on the islands.

features

Only subfossil ells and a tibiotarsus are known of the Puerto Rico crow . The former are 68 mm long and thus lie between that of the formerly sympatric Antilles crow ( C. leucognaphalus ) with 76-78 mm and that of the Hispanic palm crow ( C. palmarum ) with about 62 mm. The cubit of C. pumilis resembles that of the palm crow. The same applies to the tibiotarsus of the species, which at 78 mm is slightly larger than that of the palm crow and slightly smaller than that of the Antilles crow.

distribution

Remains of the Puerto Rican crow have been found in Puerto Rico and on the island of Saint Croix , part of the US Virgin Islands .

Way of life

One can only speculate about the way of life of the species. Since it coexisted with the Antilles crow in Puerto Rico, it may have occupied a different ecological niche than this and may have occurred more in the lowlands of the island.

Systematics and taxonomy

The first remains of the Puerto Rico crow were found in 1916 in the Cueva San Miguel near Morovis , Puerto Rico. It was a right cubit ( AMNH 4925), which Alexander Wetmore used as a holotype in 1920 for his first description of the species Corvus pumilis . Wetmore did not comment on the etymology of the epithet pumilis ; the word means “dwarfish” in Latin . So far, there is no information about the relationship between the Puerto Rico crow and other crow species inside and outside the Caribbean . 

die out

The Puerto Rican crow apparently disappeared early. In Puerto Rico it is only known from fossil sites from before the settlement; on St. Croix it was found at a cooking place from pre-Columbian times, the age of which is estimated to be 500 to 800 years. Presumably it died out before the Europeans arrived in the Caribbean. 

swell

literature

  • Pierce Brodkorb: Catalog of Fossil Birds. In: Bulletin of the Florida State Museum. Biological sciences. 23 (3), 1978. pp. 139-157. ( Full text )
  • Julian Pender Hume, Michael Walters: Extinct Birds. A&C Black, London 2012. ISBN 140815725X .
  • Alexander Wetmore: Five New Species of Birds from Cave Deposits in Porto Rico. In: Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 33, 1920. pp. 77-81. ( Full text )
  • Alexander Wetmore: Ancient Records of Birds from the Island of St. Croix with Observations on Extinct and Living Birds of Puerto Rico. In: The Journal of Agriculture of the University of Puerto Rico 21, 1937. pp. 5-15.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Wetmore 1920 , p. 81.
  2. ↑ a b c Hume & Walters 2012 , p. 246.
  3. ↑ Brodkorb 1978 , p. 160.
  4. ↑ Wetmore 1937 , p. 5.

Footnotes directly after a statement confirm this individual statement, footnotes directly after a punctuation mark the entire preceding sentence. Footnotes after a space refer to the entire preceding text.