Red-eye thrush

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Red-eye thrush
Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Family : Thrushes (Turdidae)
Subfamily : Turdinae
Genre : Real thrushes ( Turdus )
Type : Red-eye thrush
Scientific name
Turdus ravidus
( Cory , 1886)

The red-eye thrush ( Turdus ravidus ), also sometimes known as the Grand Cayman blackbird , is an extinct species of bird in the thrush family . It was endemic to Grand Cayman .

description

It was generally ash gray with a white underbelly. Under tail-coverts and the tips of the outer tail feathers were also white. The beak, the feet and the bare eye ring were colored red. The wing length was 13.5 cm, the tail length 11 cm. The beak was 2.4 cm long and the legs 3.8 cm.

Occurrence

Their habitat was in the north and northeast of the island of Grand Cayman. It consisted of mangrove swamps with poisonous cuff trees ( Hippomane mancinella ) and areas with razor- sharp coral rocks and the climbing cactus Epiphyllum hookeri .

die out

Charles Barney Cory called this species common in the first scientific description. But shortly after its discovery, it became a sought-after object for bird collectors. A total of 21 copies were shot for four collections. The first four individuals in August 1886, three specimens in 1892 and one female in 1896. The largest individual collection consisted of 13 birds, which the bird collector WW Brown, Jr. shot between April and July 1916. Suddenly this species was lost and further searches failed until the zoologist C. Bernard Lewis observed a specimen north of the East End in the east of Grand Cayman in the summer of 1938 . This was the last reliable report of a live roach thrush. Their extinction is most likely related to extensive deforestation. But the hurricanes between 1932 and 1944 also contributed to the destruction of habitats. Stuffed specimens can be found in the following museums: six in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago , one in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia , two in the American Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC , one in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin , seven in the Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts , one in the Natural History Museum in London , one in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and one in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania .

literature

  • Cory, CB 1886a. Descriptions of thirteen new species of birds from the island of Grand Cayman. Au 3: 497-501.
  • Bond, James (1956): Checklist of the Birds of the West Indies
  • Greenway, James C. (1967): Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World
  • Fuller, Errol (2000): Extinct Birds
  • Flannery, Tim & Schouten, Peter (2001): A Gap in Nature

Web links