Tristan Island Rail
| Tristan Island Rail | ||||||||||
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Tristan island rail ( Gallinula nesiotis ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Gallinula nesiotis | ||||||||||
| Sclater , 1861 |
The Tristan island rail ( Gallinula nesiotis ), also known as the Tristan moorhen , is an extinct species of rail that was endemic to the island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic .
description
The Tristan Island Rail looked very similar to the Gough Moorhen ( Gallinula comeri ). Until 1985, the gough moorhen was still considered a subspecies of the Tristan island rail. Today, however, it is assumed that the morphological similarities are due to a convergent development. The Tristan island rail reached a length of 25 centimeters. She had very small wings and was unable to fly. Head, neck, wings, tail, and underside were black; the back and the elytra were dark olive brown. The under tail-coverts and the outer flags of the hand wings were white. The beak was red with a yellow tip, and legs and feet were yellow.
Habitat and way of life
The Tristan island rail lived in the marshes and waters on Tristan da Cunha at altitudes of up to 610 m. They lived in dense vegetation consisting of Phylica nitida and Sparina arundinacea . It was omnivorous and evidently did not disdain carrion .
die out
Even before Philip Lutley Sclater described the species scientifically in 1861, it was mentioned in 1811 by Jonathan Lambert, the self-proclaimed "King of Tristan". He wrote of "little black roosters that were very fat and delicate, hundreds of which were hunted with dogs". The four specimens described by Sclater came to London via Cape Town on May 25, 1861 . Three of them were alive and shown at London Zoo. In 1873 the Tristan island rail was already so rare that members of the British research vessel HMS Challenger could barely prove it. Most of the population was presumably wiped out by overhunting as well as hunting by dogs and wild boars. The few surviving rails fell victim to the rats at the end of the 19th century, which came to the island in 1882 when the schooner Henry B. Paul was stranded .
literature
- James C. Greenway: Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., New York 1967, ISBN 0-486-21869-4 .
- Walton Beacham: World Wildlife Fund Guide to Extinct Species of Modern Times . 1997, ISBN 0-933833-40-7 .
- David Day: The Doomsday Book of Animals . Ebury Press, London 1981, ISBN 0-670-27987-0 .
- Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world . Westarp Sciences, 1986, ISBN 3-89432-213-6 .
Web links
- BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Tristan moorhen ( Gallinula nesiotis ) . Retrieved November 13, 2015.
- Gallinula nesiotis inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015.3. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2014. Retrieved November 13, 2015.