Laysan honeycreeper

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Laysan honeycreeper
Laysan honeycreeper photographed by
Donald R. Dickey in 1923, a few days before the species' extinction[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

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.

Taxonomy

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

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

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

ʻapapane (D), by John Gerrard Keulemans
, 1893–1900

The Laysan honeycreeper was a small bird, with published length measurements ranging from 13–15 cm (5–6 in).

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.

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]

Frederick W. Frohawk
, 1893–1900

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.

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

The Laysan honeycreeper was

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]

Behavior and ecology

Walter K. Fisher
, 1902

Few naturalists personally encountered the bird, and few accounts were left of its life history. It was very active, like the Laysan millerbird, always present in vegetation around buildings, and while perhaps less confiding than the millerbird, they were reported to sometimes enter buildings for moths and for roosting at night.[1][16]

The Laysan honeycreeper was

insectivorous. It originally fed on nectar from the native flower maiapilo (Capparis sandwichiana), but when that species disappeared, it switched to the ʻākulikuli (Sesuvium portulacastrum) and ʻihi (Portulaca lutea). It would flitter rapidly around in a manner similar hummingbirds when feeding in bushes.[16] It was also observed visiting nohu (Tribulus cistoides) and pōhuehue (I. pes-caprae brasiliensis). They would also feed on caterpillars and moths. Unlike the ʻapapane, the Laysan honeycreeper foraged on the ground.[20][22]

Reproduction

Fisher noted the nest of the Laysan honeycreeper was more difficult to find than that of the Laysan millerbird, and only one that contained a single egg was found, in the middle of a

Laysan albatrosses, but there were no large, white feathers, which made the nest indistinguishable from that of the Laysan millerbird, which built nests in nearby tufts. The nests of the different land birds of the island may have been very similar due to the limited building materials.[18][21][7][23]

Little is known about the breeding cycle of the Laysan honeycreeper, and most observers did not record when nests and young were found.[16][7] Freeth told Palmer that the bird was in "full song" in January and February, when there was also a golden gloss over the red plumage. This indicates that the breeding season was between that time and June, when Palmer saw full-grown juveniles.[7] 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] The ovate eggs were glossless white, with grayish blotches and spots at the larger end, and reddish brown spots above these, these markings often forming circles. The eggs varied in size, but a typical egg measured 18 by 13.75 mm (0.709 by 0.541 in). The eggs were similar to those of the short-toed treecreeper and the barn swallow, but much less glossy.[18][21][7]

Extinction

Bird filmed by Dickey in 1923, a few days before the species' extinction

After a 1911 expedition, Homer R. Dill and

extant.[27][24]

References

  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. 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. ^
    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. ^
    doi:10.1080/00222939208677377
    .
  7. ^
    doi:10.5962/bhl.title.79055
    .
  8. ISBN 978-1408133262
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-486-21869-4
    .
  10. doi:10.5479/si.00810282.365
    .
  11. PMC 2665804
    .
  12. 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. 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. ^
    doi:10.5479/si.00775630.171.1
    .
  17. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4729-3744-5
    .
  18. ^ a b c d 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. ISSN 0030-8870
    .
  20. ^
    doi:10.2173/bna.296
    .
  21. ^
    doi:10.2307/4069753
    .
  22. ISBN 978-0804800631
    .
  23. doi:10.5479/si.00775630.432.1
    .
  24. ^
    doi:10.5962/bhl.title.62940
    .
  25. ^ Nutting, Charles Cleveland (1903). "The Bird Rookeries on the Island of Laysan". The Popular Science Monthly. 63: 321–332.
  26. ^ "1923 USS Tanager Expedition". Video. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Mult-Agency Education Project. Archived from the original on 2008-09-29. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  27. ^ Wetmore, Alexander (1925). "Bird life among lava rock and coral sand". National Geographic Magazine. 48: 77–108.
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