Black emu
| Black emu | ||||||||||||
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Black Emu, drawing by John Gerrard Keulemans |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Dromaius novaehollandiae minor | ||||||||||||
| Spencer , 1906 |
The black emu ( Dromaius novaehollandiae minor , syn .: D. n. Ater ) is an extinct subspecies of the great emu that was widespread on King Island off Australia until the 19th century .
features
The black emu reached a height of about 1.4 meters. He weighed an average of about 23 kilograms. There is some evidence that the females tended to be larger than the males. However, there are only a few exact descriptions of this subspecies and only one hide, which is in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris.
Black emus have been observed both near bays and along the coastline. The birds were more in the shade than in the open air. They ate berries, grass and probably also washed up algae. Black emus preferred to search for food at dawn and dusk. They lived mostly solitary and pairs were only observed during the breeding season. The nests were made under bushes near lagoons. One nest found had seven eggs. Broods of eight and nine juveniles each were also observed. The breeding season was five to six weeks.
die out
The reasons for the extinction of the black emus are not exactly known. Europeans settled this island and seal hunters hunted this species before this bird was identified as a new species during the Baudin expedition . The black emu died out shortly thereafter.
Although two specimens ended up in the Paris Zoo in 1804, the last of these zoo animals died as the last of its kind in 1822 . On the island, the animals were hunted to extinction shortly after they were discovered.
literature
- PJ Higgins (Eds.): Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds , Volume 1, Ratites to Ducks, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990, ISBN 0-19-553068-3
Web links
- Dromaius minor in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.