Wikipedia

Laysan honeycreeper

The Laysan honeycreeper, Laysan honeyeater, or Laysan ʻapapane (Himatione fraithii) is an extinct species of finch that was endemic to the island of Laysan in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Laysan honeycreeper
Laysan honeycreeper photographed by Donald R. Dickey in 1923, a few days before the species became extinct[1]

Extinct (1923)  (IUCN 3.1)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Fringillidae
Subfamily: Carduelinae
Genus: Himatione
Species:
†H. fraithii
Binomial name
†Himatione fraithii
Map of Hawaii showing Laysan in the lower left inset box
Synonyms
List
  • Himatione fraithi
  • Himatione freethii
  • Himatione freethi
  • Himatione sanguinea fraithii
  • Himatione sanguinea fraithi
  • Himatione sanguinea freethii
  • Himatione sanguinea freethi

Taxonomy edit

 
Taxidermied Laysan finch, Laysan honeycreeper, and Laysan rail, 1903

The Laysan honeycreeper was first noticed on 3 April 1828 by C. Isenbeck, surgeon of the Russian ship Moller, whose report was published in an 1834 article by the German naturalist Heinrich von Kittlitz.[3][4][5] The British zoologist and banker Walter Rothschild described and named seven new bird species from Hawaii (then called the Sandwich Islands), obtained by his collector, Henry Palmer. One species from the island of Laysan was named Himatione fraithii, and classified as a member of the finch family Drepanidae. Rothschild found it to resemble the ʻapapane (H. sanguinea) of the same genus, while differing in various details.[6] From 1893–1900, Rothschild published a work on birds from Laysan, with further observations about the honeycreeper, correcting its name to H. freethii.[7] The specific name was a misspelled reference to Captain George D. Freeth, the US governor of Laysan.[8][9][10][11]

In a review published in 1950, the American ornithologist Dean Amadon treated the Laysan honeycreeper as a subspecies of the ʻapapane and adopted the trinomial name Himatione sanguinea freethii.[12] Subsequent publications followed this lead.[13] In 2015 the North American Classification Committee (NACC) of the American Ornithologists' Union decided to promote the extinct honeycreeper to the species level and to adopt the original binomial name.[14] This change was adopted by the International Ornithological Committee in their world list of birds.[15]

There are at least 85 skins and six mounted specimens of the Laysan honeycreeper in various museums across the world, but two specimens appear to have gone missing. There are also at least two skeletons, three nests, and one egg preserved.[16]

Description edit

 
Illustration of an adult male Laysan honeycreeper (A), an adult female (B), and juvenile (C), and the related ʻapapane (D), by John Gerrard Keulemans, ca. 1900

The Laysan honeycreeper was a small bird, with published length measurements ranging from 13–15 cm (5–6 in).[17][9][6] The wing measured 65–69 mm (2.55–2.7 in), the tail 61 mm (2.4 in), the culmen (upper surface of the beak) 14 mm (0.55 in), and the tarsometatarsus (lower leg bone) was 23 mm (0.9 in).[7] It was bright scarlet vermilion with a faint tint of golden orange on the head, breast and upper abdomen, while the rest of its upper parts were orange scarlet. The lower abdomen was dusky gray that faded into brownish white, and the under-tail covert feathers were grayish. The wings, tail, bill, and legs were dark brown, while the iris was black with a brown outline. Immature birds were brown, with paler lower parts, and had green edges to their wing-covert feathers.[17] The bill was slender and downturned.[1]

The sexes were alike, though the bill, wings, and tail were slightly shorter in the female. While Rothschild stated in his 1892 description that the female was paler than the male, Fisher indicated in 1903 that such differences may have been age-related instead. Fisher also noted that the illustration of the Laysan honeycreeper published by Rothschild showed the bird as far too pale, giving an inaccurate idea of its color.[18][6] Rothschild also mentioned in his 1893–1900 work that freshly molted Laysan honeycreepers were a deeper red and not as easy to distinguish from the ʻapapane, while the latter did not fade to as pale a red.[7]

The ʻapapane differs from the Laysan honeycreeper in being blood-red overall, with black wings and tail, whiter under-tail covert feathers, and a longer bill.[17] The American ornithologists Storrs L. Olson and Alan C. Ziegler suggested in 1995 that the difference in plumage of the Laysan honeycreeper was due to fading caused by the intense sunlight of Laysan, but pointed out it had been found to be distinct in osteological features.[19][20]

Palmer reported the song of the Laysan honeycreeper as low and sweet, consisting of several notes. He noted it was usually silent, except during the breeding-season,and was in "full song" during January and February. While catching and skinning birds in 1891, Palmer caught a Laysan honeycreeper in his net, which proceeded to sing in his hand; he answered it with a whistle, which it returned, continuing for some minutes without seeming frightened.[7][16]

Habitat edit

 
Photo of a nest, by Walter K. Fisher, 1902

The Laysan honeycreeper was endemic to Laysan Island, which has a total land area of 3.6 km2 (1.4 sq mi), and is the largest of the northwestern Hawaiian islands. Laysan is the eroded remnant of a once high island, built up by volcanic activity, perhaps the flattened top of a volcano that formed in the Miocene. The island is roughly triangular, and rises into up to 12 m (40 ft) high crest elevations. Its subsurface substratum is coralline rock, and its topography suggests it was once part of an atoll with a lagoon which occupies about one fifth of the island's center, and is now almost filled with sand and coral fragments. The island is ringed by sand dunes, but is otherwise well-vegetated. The island's original flora was the most varied of the northwestern Hawaiian islands, but much of it was destroyed by human activities by 1923, leaving near-desert like conditions and several extinct species, though the extent of the vegetation had almost recovered by 1973.[16][4]

In 1903, Fisher stated that the Laysan honeycreeper was found all over Laysan Island, but was most abundant in the interior among tall grass and low bushes near the open plain that bordered the lagoon, an area where all the land-birds appeared to congregate. This was also its favored nesting area, with its broad patches of the succulent Portulaca that these birds fed from. Their bright, scarlet plumage made them conspicuous as they fluttered among the soft green Chenopodium bushes.[18][21]

Behaviour and ecology edit

Diet edit

Few naturalists personally encountered the bird, and few accounts were left of its life history.[1][16] Laysan honeycreepers fed on nectar from the native flowers on the island, especially maiapilo (Capparis sandwichiana). When populations of that species declined, it was forced to feed on nectar from ʻākulikuli (Sesuvium portulacastrum) and ʻihi (Portulaca lutea). It was observed visiting koali ʻawa (Ipomoea indica), pōhuehue (I. pes-caprae brasiliensis), and nohu (Tribulus cistoides), and would also feed on caterpillars and moths. Unlike the ʻapapane, the Laysan honeycreeper foraged on the ground.[20][22]

Reproduction edit

Fisher noted the nest of the Laysan honeycreeper was more difficult to find than that of Acrocephalus, and only one that contained a single egg was found, in the middle of a grass tuft about 61 cm (2 ft) above ground. The nest was made loosely of fine grass and rootlets, and its dainty bowl measured 5.1 cm (2 in) across and 2.5 cm (1 in) in depth. It was lined with fine rootlets and brown down from young Laysan albatross, but there were no large, white feathers, which made the nest indistinguishable from that of the Laysan millerbird, which built nests in nearby tufts.[18][21]

Laysan honeycreeper primarily nested in the center of tall grass bunches, but sometimes built nests in dense ʻāheahea (Chenopodium sandwichensis) shrubs. Nests were made of rootlets interwoven with grass blades.[20]

Nothing is known about the breeding cycle of the Laysan honeycreeper, and most observers did not record when nests and young were found. Fisher collected a nest with an egg in mid-may, while W.A. Bryan collected an egg on May 10. Bailey stated the clutch size was four or five eggs, while sets of three were taken by various collectors.[16]

Extinction edit

Live specimen filmed by Dickey in 1923

After a 1911 expedition, Homer R. Dill and William Alanson Bryan estimated that 300 lived on Laysan, and that it and other birds there were "doomed to extermination".[22][23] Domestic rabbits were introduced to the island in the late 19th century, and quickly consumed nearly all vegetation on the island, including nectar sources for the Laysan honeycreeper. The bird was filmed in 1923 during the Tanager Expedition. Shortly after, Laysan was battered by a strong storm, and later attempts at finding any remaining Laysan honeycreeper failed.[24] Other birds also inhabited the island, including the Laysan millerbird, the Laysan rail, the Laysan duck, and the Laysan finch. Of these, only the finch and the duck remain extant.[25]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Bailey, Alfred M. (1956). "Birds of Midway and Laysan Islands". Denver Museum of Natural History Museum Pictorial. 12: 119–122.
  2. ^ BirdLife International (2017). "Himatione fraithii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2017: e.T103829706A119553201. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T103829706A119553201.en. Retrieved 20 November 2021.
  3. ^ von Kittlitz, Heinrich (1834). "Nachricht von den Brüteplätzen einiger tropischen Seevögel im stillen Ocean". Museum Senckenbergianum: Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der beschreibenden Naturgeschichte (in German). 1: 115–126.
  4. ^ a b Warner, Richard E. (1963). "Recent History and Ecology of the Laysan Duck". The Condor. 65 (1): 3–23. doi:10.2307/1365134. ISSN 0010-5422. JSTOR 1365134.
  5. ^ Pyle, Peter (2011). "Nomenclature of the Laysan Honeycreeper Himatione (sanguinea) fraithii". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 131 (2): 116–117.
  6. ^ a b c Rothschild, Walter (1892). "Descriptions of seven new species of birds from the Sandwich Islands". The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 6th series. 10 (55): 108–110. doi:10.1080/00222939208677377.
  7. ^ a b c d Rothschild, Walter (1893–1900). The avifauna of Laysan and the neighbouring islands: with a complete history to date of the birds of the Hawaiian possessions. London: R.H. Porter. pp. x, 3–4, 141–145, 305. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.79055.
  8. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names [electronic resource]: from AALGE to ZUSII. London: Christopher Helm. p. 164. ISBN 978-1408133262.
  9. ^ a b Greenway, James C. (1967). Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World. New York: American Committee for International Wild Life Protection. pp. 408–409. ISBN 978-0-486-21869-4.
  10. ^ Olson, Storrs L.; James, Helen F. (1982). "Prodromus of the fossil avifauna of the Hawaiian Islands". Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology (365): 1–59. doi:10.5479/si.00810282.365.
  11. ^ Reding, Dawn M; Foster, Jeffrey T; James, Helen F; Pratt, H. Douglas; Fleischer, Robert C (2009). "Convergent evolution of 'creepers' in the Hawaiian honeycreeper radiation". Biology Letters. 5 (2): 221–224. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0589. PMC 2665804.
  12. ^ Amadon, Dean (1950). The Hawaiian honeycreepers (Aves, Drepaniidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 95. p. 174. hdl:2246/1077.
  13. ^ "Proposal 2015-A-10: Split Laysan Honeycreeper from Apapane Himatione sanguinea and change its specific epithet to fraithii" (PDF). American Ornithologists' Union. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-24. Retrieved 2015-07-24.
  14. ^ Chesser, R. Terry; et al. (2015). "Fifty-sixth Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds". The Auk. 132 (3): 748–764. doi:10.1642/AUK-15-73.1.
  15. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David (eds.). "Finches, euphonias". World Bird List Version 5.3. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  16. ^ a b c d e Ely, Charles A.; Clapp, Roger B. (1973). "The natural history of Laysan Island, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands". Atoll Research Bulletin. 171: 1–19, 250–253. doi:10.5479/si.00775630.171.1.
  17. ^ a b c Hume, J. P. (2017). Extinct Birds (2 ed.). Croydon: Bloomsbury Natural History. p. 352. ISBN 978-1-4729-3744-5.
  18. ^ a b c Fisher, Walter K. (1903). "Birds of Laysan and the Leeward Islands, Hawaiian group". Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission. 23 (3): 803–804.
  19. ^ Olson, Storrs L.; Ziegler, Alan C. (1995). "Remains of land birds from Lisianski Island, with observations on the terrestrial avifauna of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands". Pacific Science. 49 (2). hdl:10088/8389. ISSN 0030-8870.
  20. ^ a b c Fancy, Steven G.; C. John Ralph (1997). "ʻApapane". In A. Poole; F. Gill (eds.). Birds of North America. Vol. 296. Academy of Natural Sciences. doi:10.2173/bna.296.
  21. ^ a b Fisher, Walter K. (1903). "Notes on the Birds Peculiar to Laysan Island, Hawaiian Group". The Auk. 20 (4): 384–397. doi:10.2307/4069753.
  22. ^ a b Bryan, William Alanson; Dill, Homer R. (1912). "Report of an expedition to Laysan Island in 1911: under the joint auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture and University of Iowa". U.S. Department of Agriculture, Biological Survey. 42: 3–30. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.62940.
  23. ^ Nutting, Charles Cleveland (1903). "The Bird Rookeries on the Island of Laysan". The Popular Science Monthly. 63: 321–332.
  24. ^ "1923 USS Tanager Expedition". Video. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Mult-Agency Education Project. Archived from the original on 2008-09-29. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  25. ^ Wetmore, Alexander (1925). "Bird life among lava rock and coral sand". National Geographic Magazine. 48: 77–108.
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