Samoa Pooch
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Samoa grouse ( Pareudiastes pacificus ) |
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| Pareudiastes pacificus | ||||||||||||
| Kubary ; Hartlaub & Finsch , 1871 |
The Samoa grouse ( Pareudiastes pacificus , synonym : Gallinula pacifica ), also known as the Samoa wood rail , was an almost flightless rail that was endemic to the Samoan island of Savai'i and is probably extinct. It is often placed in its own genus, Pareudiastes , as it is characterized by a soil-dwelling way of life and sometimes nocturnal rhythm of life. In the Samoan language , she was referred to as puna'e ("one who leaps up"), which is attributed to the habit of jumping for cover as soon as she was startled.
features
The small rail reached a length of approx. 25 cm. The plumage was dark blue on the head, neck and chest in contrast to the black body and tail. The back was dark olive green with a green tinge. The beak and blaze were yellowish to orange-red, eyes and legs red.
Way of life
The relatively large eyes indicate a nocturnal way of life. The habitat was the Samoas mountain forests ( en Central Savai'i Rainforest) and the food consisted of insects and other small organisms that were preyed on by digging in the leaf litter. Captured animals could not tolerate vegetarian food. The eggs attributed to the bird were laid in ground nests made of twigs and grass. Locals, however, claimed that the bird nested in burrows, but it is not certain whether this was confused with petrels or shearwaters , which make similar grunts, or whether these locals simply referred to earth hollows.
die out
The Samoa Pooch was first described by Johann Stanislaus Kubary in 1869 and the last specimen was collected in 1873 during the British Challenger expedition . In total there are only ten or eleven known specimens and one or two eggs in museums in Leiden , New York , Liverpool and London .
Apparently the species died as early as the 1870s from introduced animal species such as rats and feral cats. It has also been described as savory and has obviously been hunted. In 1980, Reed recorded an eyewitness account from a local who reported that the species had been extinct since 1907. However, there were still unconfirmed sightings in highland forests in 1984 (August 22nd and 23rd). Late in 2003, a deep, chuckling call " ooh-ooh-ooh " was heard, which does not fit the type of rail that still survived on Savai'i. If the species survived, it is still in danger because the habitats may be cut down.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gustav Hartlaub; Otto Finsch: On a collection of birds from Savai and Rarotonga Islands in the Pacific. In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1871: 21–32 biostor.org ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Storrs L. Olson: The South Pacific Gallinules of the Genus Pareudiastes . In: Wilson Bulletin 1975, vol. 87, 1: 1-5. PDF
- ^ Sylvia M. Reed: The birds of Savai'i, Western Samoa. In: Notornis, 1980 vol. 27, 2: 151-159.
- ↑ Mark Bellingham; Alison Davis: Forest bird communities in Western Samoa. In: Notornis 1988, vol. 35, 2: 117-128.
