Raiateastar

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Raiateastar
Illustration of the Raiteastars by Georg Forster from 1774, watercolor in the Natural History Museum, London

Illustration of the Raiteastars by Georg Forster from 1774, watercolor in the Natural History Museum, London

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Family : Starlings (Sturnidae)
Subfamily : Mainatinae
Genre : Singing Starlings ( Aplonis )
Type : Raiateastar
Scientific name
Aplonis ulietensis
( Gmelin , 1789)

The Raiateastar ( Aplonis ulietensis ) is an extinct passerine species from the island of Raiatea in the Society Islands , of which only the original description and a drawing by Georg Forster still exist today. In the past it was traditionally assigned to thrushes under the common name Ulieta "thrush" ( Turdus ulietensis ) . After the discovery of the remains of the extinct Huahine star ( Aplonis diluvialis ) on Huahine in the Society Islands in the 1980s, current assumptions tend towards the fact that this bird species is a member of the genus of the song starlings ( Aplonis ). could act.

features

The specimen collected by the Forsters, a female, was 22 cm long , according to John Latham . The top was blackish. All feathers had reddish-brown fringes, including the wing covers and the twelve control feathers. The tail was rounded. The head was drawn blackish-brown. The underside was ocher. The iris was dark yellow. The legs were black. The reddish pearl-colored beak was about 32 mm long. It was notched at the top.

Systematics

This species is only known from a watercolor drawing of the lost type specimen from 1774, contemporary descriptions and a few short field notes. The artist was Georg Forster, who, together with his father Johann Reinhold Forster, took part in James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific as a natural scientist on board the HMS Resolution . The Cook expedition visited Raiatea (formerly Ulieta) in May and June 1774. The painting, which is in the Natural History Museum in London, is titled "Raiatea, female, June 1, 1774" and shows the specimen that was in the Forsters 'possession before it entered Sir Joseph Banks' collection and later disappeared. This specimen was described by John Latham as Bay Thrush in his General Synopsis of Birds in 1783 . However, since Latham only used the English trivial name, Johann Friedrich Gmelin published the scientific name Turdus ulietensis in 1789 .

Way of life

The only records of a living bird come from Johann Reinhold Forster, who noted that this species had a soft, flute-like voice and inhabited the thicket in the valleys.

Trivia

In 2005, writer Martin Davies published a novel called The Conjuror's Bird: A Novel in which this bird plays an important role.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Josep del Hoyo, Nigel Collar, David A. Christie, Andrew Elliott, Lincoln DC Fishpool, Guy M. Kirwan and Peter Boesman: HBW and BirdLife Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World Volume 2 (Passerines) . Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, ​​2016. ISBN 978-84-96553-98-9
  2. ↑ Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world. Westarp Sciences, 1995, ISBN 3-89432-213-6
  3. ↑ Edwin Antonius: Lexicon of extinct birds and mammals. Natur und Tier Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-931587-76-2
  4. ↑ David W. Steadman: A new species of starling (Sturnidae, Aplonis) from an archaeological site on Huahine, Society Islands. Notornis 36 (1989): pp. 161-169
  5. ^ A b Julian Pender Hume, Michael Walters: Extinct Birds. A & C Black, London 2012. pp. 278-279. ISBN 140815725X .
  6. ↑ James C. Greenway : Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World. New York: Dover Publications, 1967. pp. 377-378. ISBN 0-486-21869-4 .
  7. ↑ a b Errol Fuller : Extinct Birds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. 314-315. ISBN 0-19-850837-9 .
  8. ↑ Martin Davies: The Conjuror's Bird. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005. ISBN 0-340-89616-7 (German: Die Pflanzenmalerin , C. Bertelsmann, 2006. ISBN 978-3-57000-888-1 . Translation: Barbara Heller).