White swamphen

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White swamphen
Specimen at
World Museum
, Liverpool, one of two in existence. Note scattered blue feathers

Extinct (probably by 1834)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Porphyrio
Species:
†P. albus
Binomial name
†Porphyrio albus
(Shaw, 1790)
Location of Lord Howe Island
Synonyms
List
  • Fulica alba Shaw, 1790
  • Gallinula alba (Latham, 1790)
  • Porphyrio stanleyi Rowley, 1875
  • Porphyrio raperi Mathews, 1928
  • Kentrophorina alba (Mathews, 1928)
  • Notornis alba (Pelzeln, 1860)
  • Porphyrio albus albus (Hindwood, 1940)

The white swamphen (Porphyrio albus), also known as the Lord Howe swamphen, Lord Howe gallinule or white gallinule, is an

Subfossil
bones have also been discovered since.

The white swamphen was 36 to 55 cm (14 to 22 in) long. Both known skins have mainly-white plumage, although the Liverpool specimen also has dispersed blue feathers. This is unlike other

albinism, it may have been progressive greying in which feathers lose their pigment with age. The bird's bill, frontal shield and legs were red, and it had a claw (or spur
) on its wing. Little was recorded about the white swamphen's behaviour. It may not have been flightless, but was probably a poor flier. This and its docility made the bird easy prey for visiting humans, who killed it with sticks. Reportedly once common, the species may have been hunted to extinction before 1834, when Lord Howe Island was settled.

Taxonomy

holotype specimen (right) by Sarah Stone, from John White
's 1790 book in which the species was named

Richard Howe. Crews of the visiting ships captured native birds (including white swamphens), and all contemporary descriptions and depictions of the species were made between 1788 and 1790. The bird was first mentioned by the master of HMS Supply, David Blackburn, in a 1788 letter to a friend. Other accounts and illustrations were produced by Arthur Bowes Smyth, the fleet's naval officer and surgeon, who drew the first known illustration of the species; Arthur Phillip, governor of New South Wales; and George Raper, midshipman of HMS Sirius. Secondhand accounts also exist, and at least ten contemporary illustrations are known. The accounts indicate that the population varied, and individual bird plumage was white, blue, or mixed blue-and-white.[2][3]

In 1790, the white swamphen was scientifically described by the surgeon

gallinule").[2][8]

One other white swamphen specimen is in Liverpool's

Sir Joseph Banks, it later entered the collection of the traveller William Bullock and was purchased by Lord Stanley; Stanley's son donated it to Liverpool's public museums in 1850. Although White said that the first specimen was obtained from Lord Howe Island, the provenance of the second has been unclear; it was originally said to have come from New Zealand, resulting in taxonomic confusion. Phillip wrote that the bird could also be found on Norfolk Island and elsewhere, but Latham said it could be found only on Norfolk Island. When the first specimen was sold by the Leverian Museum, it was listed as coming from New Holland (which Australia was called at the time)—perhaps because it was sent from Sydney.[2][9] A note by the naturalist Edgar Leopold Layard on a contemporary illustration of the bird by Captain John Hunter inaccurately stated that it only lived on Ball's Pyramid, an islet off Lord Howe Island.[10][11]

primary feathers
)

The zoologist

albino variety of the Australasian swamphen (P. melanotus) as P. m. varius alba in 1844. The belief that the bird was simply an albino was held by several later writers, and many failed to notice that White cited Lord Howe Island as the origin of the Vienna specimen.[2][12] In 1860 and 1873, the ornithologist August von Pelzeln said that the Vienna specimen had come from Norfolk Island, and assigned the species to the genus Notornis as N. alba; the takahē (P. hochstetteri) of New Zealand was also placed in that genus at the time.[13][14] In 1873, the naturalist Osbert Salvin agreed that the Lord Howe Island bird was similar to the takahē, although he had apparently never seen the Vienna specimen, basing his conclusion on a drawing provided by von Pelzeln. Salvin included a takahē-like illustration of the Vienna specimen by the artist John Gerrard Keulemans, based on von Pelzeln's drawing, in his article.[2][15]

In 1875, the ornithologist

Walter Rothschild considered the two species distinct from each other in 1907, but placed them both in the genus Notornis. Rothschild thought that the image published by Phillip in 1789 depicted N. stanleyi from Lord Howe Island, and the image published by White in 1790 showed N. alba from Norfolk Island. He disagreed that the specimens were albinos, thinking instead that they were evolving into a white species. Rothschild published an illustration of N. alba by Keulemans where it is similar to a takahē, inaccurately showing it with dark primary feathers, although the Vienna specimen on which it was based is all white.[12] In 1910, the ornithologist Tom Iredale demonstrated that there was no proof of the white swamphen existing anywhere but on Lord Howe Island and noted that early visitors to Norfolk Island (such as Captain James Cook and Lieutenant Philip Gidley King) did not mention the bird.[18] In 1913, after examining the Vienna specimen, Iredale concluded that the bird belonged in the genus Porphyrio and did not resemble the takahē.[19]

junior synonym
of P. albus), by Keulemans, 1875

In 1928, the ornithologist Gregory Mathews discussed a 1790 painting by Raper which he thought differed enough from P. albus in proportions and colouration that he named a new species based on it: P. raperi. Mathews also considered P. albus distinct enough to warrant a new genus, Kentrophorina, due to having a claw (or spur) on one wing.[20] In 1936, he conceded that P. raperi was a synonym of P. albus.[2] The ornithologist Keith Alfred Hindwood agreed that the bird was an albino P. melanotus in 1932, and pointed out that the naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster (his son) did not record the bird when Cook's ship visited Norfolk Island in 1774. In 1940, Hindwood found the white swamphen so closely related to the Australasian swamphen that he considered them subspecies of the same species: P. albus albus and P. albus melanotus (since albus is the older name). Hindwood suggested that the population on Lord Howe Island was white; blue Australasian swamphens occasionally arrived (stragglers from elsewhere have been found on the island) and bred with the white birds, accounting for the blue and partially-blue individuals in the old accounts. He also pointed out that Australasian swamphens are prone to white feathering.[3][21] In 1941, the biologist Ernst Mayr proposed that the white swamphen was a partially-albinistic population of Australasian swamphens. Mayr suggested that the blue swamphens remaining on Lord Howe Island were not stragglers, but had survived because they were less conspicuous than the white ones.[22] In 1967, the ornithologist James Greenway also considered the white swamphen a subspecies (with P. stanleyi a synonym) and considered the white individuals albinos. He suggested that the similarities between the wing feathers of the white swamphen and the takahē were due to parallel evolution in two isolated populations of reluctant fliers.[23]

The ornithologist

colour morph of the population, or the blue birds may have been Australasian swamphens which associated with the white birds.[26]

In 2015, the biologists Juan C. Garcia-R. and Steve A. Trewick analysed the

phylogenetic position of the white swamphen according to the 2015 study:[2][27]

takahē was once considered a close relative by some writers
Small, dark bird with large feet
The Australasian swamphen
is an anatomically similar and perhaps closely related species

P. alleni (1)

P. martinica (2)

P. flavirostris (3)

Clade A

P. p. porphyrio (1 sample)

P. p. indicus (7 samples)

P. p. madagascariensis (1 sample)

P. hochstetteri (#4)

P. mantelli (#5)

Clade B

P. p. melanotus (35 samples)

P. p. bellus (5 samples)

P. p. pulverulentus (1 sample)

P. albus (#6)

P. p. indicus (1 sample)

P. p. seistanicus (1 sample)

P. p. poliocephalus (8 samples)

The ornithologists Hein van Grouw and

endemic to Lord Howe Island, and suggested when the specimens were collected (between March and May 1788) and under which circumstances they arrived in England. They concluded that the white swamphen was a valid species which changed colouration with age, after reconstructing the colouration of juvenile birds before turning white (which was distinct from other swamphens). Van Grouw and Hume found the white swamphen anatomically more similar to the Australasian swamphen than the Philippine swamphen, and suggested that studies with more-complete data sets than the earlier DNA might yield different results. Due to their anatomical similarities, geographic proximity and the recolonisation of Lord Howe and Norfolk Island by Australasian swamphens, they found it likely that the white swamphen was descended from Australasian swamphens.[2]

In 2021, Hume and colleagues reported the results of their palaeontological reconnaissance of Lord Howe Island, which included the discovery of subfossil white swamphen bones. A complete pelvis and representatives of most limb bones were found in the dunes of Blinky Beach (situated at the end of an airport runway), and the authors stated these would provide new insight into the morphology and behaviour of the species.[28]

Description

Henrik Grönvold
, 1928; the legs were probably red in life

The length of the white swamphen has been given as 36 cm (14 in) and 55 cm (22 in), making it similar to the Australasian swamphen in size. Its wings were proportionally the shortest of all swamphens. The wing of the Vienna specimen is 218 mm (9 in) mm long, the tail is 73.3 mm (3 in), the

covert feathers relative to the primary feathers appear to have been intermediate between those of the purple swamphen and the takahē.[25]

Although the known skins are mostly white, contemporary illustrations depict some blue individuals; others had a mixture of white and blue feathers. Their legs were red or yellow, but the latter colour may be present only on dried specimens. The bill and frontal shield were red, and the iris was red or brown. According to notes written on an illustration by an unknown artist (in the collection of the artist Thomas Watling, inaccurately dated 1792), the chicks were black and became bluish-grey and then white as they matured. The Vienna specimen is pure white, but the Liverpool specimen has yellowish reflections on its neck and breast, blackish-blue feathers speckled on the head (concentrated near the upper surface of the shield) and neck, blue feathers on the breast, and purplish-blue feathers on the shoulders, back, scapular, and lesser covert feathers. Some of the rectrices (tail feathers) are purplish-brown, and some of the scapular feathers and those on the mid-back are sooty-brown at the base and sooty-blue further up. The central rectrices are sooty-brown and bluish. This colouration indicates that the Liverpool specimen was a younger bird than the Vienna specimen, and the latter had reached the final stage of maturity. Since the Liverpool specimen preserves some of its original colour, van Grouw, and Hume were able to reconstruct its natural colouration before becoming white. It differed from other swamphens in having blackish-blue lores, forehead, crown, nape, and hind neck; purple-blue mantle, back, and wings; a darker rump and upper-tail covert feathers; and dark greyish-blue underparts.[2][8][10][25][26]

Three swamphens: one black, one dark-blue and one white
Illustration by an unknown artist (in the collection of Thomas Watling), showing the bird's three colour stages

Phillip gave a detailed description in 1789, possibly based on a live bird he received in Sydney:

This beautiful bird greatly resembles the purple Gallinule in shape and make, but is much superior in size, being as large as a dunghill fowl. The length from the end of the bill to that of the claws is two feet three inches; the bill is very stout, and the colour of it, the whole top of the head, and the irides red; the sides of the head around the eyes are reddish, very thinly sprinkled with white feathers; the whole of the plumage without exception is white. The legs the colour of the bill. This species is pretty common on Lord Howe’s Island, Norfolk Island, and other places, and is a very tame species. The other sex, supposed to be the male, is said to have some blue on the wings.[2]

Condition of the specimens

The Vienna specimen is today a

collecting bias; unusually-coloured specimens are more likely to be collected than normally-coloured ones.[2][8][17][25][26]

Behaviour and ecology

White swamphen, standing upright
Two swamphens: one white and the other blue-and-white
Illustration of presumably live birds by George Raper, 1790; the left image is the basis of the junior synonym P. raperi, and the right shows one white and one still-variegated individual

The white swamphen inhabited wooded lowland areas in wetlands. Nothing was recorded about its social and reproductive behaviour and its nest, eggs and call were never described. Presumably it did not migrate.[25] Blackburn's 1788 account is the only one that mentions the diet of this bird:

... On the shore we caught several sorts of birds ... and a white fowl – something like a Guinea hen, with a very strong thick & sharp pointed bill of a red colour – stout legs and claws – I believe they are carnivorous they hold their food between the thumb or hind claw & the bottom of the foot & lift it to the mouth without stopping so much as a parrot.[2]

Some contemporary accounts indicated that the bird was flightless. Rowley considered the Liverpool specimen (representing the separate species P. stanleyi) capable of flight, due to its longer wings; Rothschild believed that both were flightless, although he was inconsistent about whether their wings were the same length. Van Grouw and Hume found that both specimens showed evidence of an increased terrestrial lifestyle (including decreased wing length, more robust feet and short toes), and were in the process of becoming flightless. Although it may still have been capable of flight, it was behaviourally flightless, similar to other island birds, such as some parrots. Though the white swamphen was similar in size to the Australasian swamphen, it had proportionally shorter wings and therefore a higher

wing load – perhaps the highest of all swamphens.[2][9][12] Upon the discovery of subfossil pelvic and limb bones in 2021, Hume and colleagues preliminarily stated that these bones were much more robust in the white swamphen than in the volant Australasian swamphen, a trait common in flightless rails.[28]

Van Grouw and Hume pointed out that a white colour aberration in birds is rarely caused by albinism (which is less common than formerly believed), but by

founding population, which would have facilitated the spread of inheritable progressive greying.[2][8][29]

Extinction

Three swamphens next to a palm tree, against a mountainous background
Three live birds by Arthur Bowes Smyth c. 1788, the first known illustration of this species

Although the white swamphen was considered common during the late 18th century, it appears to have disappeared quickly; the period from the island's discovery to the last mention of living birds is only two years (1788–90). It had probably vanished by 1834, when Lord Howe Island was first settled, or during the following decade. Whalers and sealers had used the island for supplies, and may have hunted the bird to extinction. Habitat destruction probably did not play a role, and animal predators (such as rats and cats) arrived later.[2][10][25] Several contemporary accounts stress the ease with which the island's birds were hunted, and the large number which could be taken to provision ships.[3] In 1789, White described how the white swamphen could be caught:

They [sailors] also found on it, in great plenty, a kind of fowl, resembling much of the Guinea fowl in shape and size, but widely different in colour; they being in general all white, with a red fleshy substance rising, like a cock’s comb, from the head, and not unlike a piece of sealing-wax. These not being birds of flight, nor in the least wild, the sailors availing themselves of their gentleness and inability to take wing from their pursuits, easily struck them down with sticks.[2]

The fact that they could be killed with sticks may have been due to their poor flying ability, which would have made them vulnerable to human predation. With no natural enemies on the island, they were tame and curious.[2][3][26] The physician John Foulis conducted a mid-1840s ornithological survey on the island but did not mention the bird, so it was almost certainly extinct by that time.[10] In 1909, the writer Arthur Francis Basset Hull expressed hope that the bird still survived in unexplored mountains.[30]

Eight types of bird have become extinct due to human interference since Lord Howe Island was discovered, including the

Mascarenes.[3]

See also

  • List of recently extinct bird species

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22692801A93370193.en
    . Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r van Grouw, H.; Hume, J. (2016). "The history and morphology of Lord Howe Gallinule or Swamphen Porphyrio albus (Rallidae)" (PDF). Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 136 (3): 172–198.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1071/MU940001
    .
  4. ^ White, John (1790). Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales : with sixty-five plates of nondescript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions. London: Printed by J. Debrett. p. 238.
  5. ISBN 978-0-9568611-0-8
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-643-06037-1
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  7. doi:10.3366/anh.1998.25.2.149
    .
  8. ^ a b c d Hume, J. P.; van Grouw, H. (2014). "Colour aberrations in extinct and endangered birds" (PDF). Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 134: 168–193.
  9. ^ a b c Rowley, G. D. (1876). Ornithological miscellany. London: Trübner and Co., Bernard Quaritch, R.H. Porter. pp. 36–48.
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4081-5725-1
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  11. doi:10.1071/MU965083
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  12. ^ a b c Rothschild, W. (1907). Extinct Birds. London: Hutchinson & Co. pp. 143–144.
  13. ^ von Pelzeln, A. (1860). "Zur ornithologie der Insel Norfolk". Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (in German). 41: 319–332.
  14. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1873.tb05883.x
    .
  15. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1873.tb05905.x
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  16. ^ R. Wagstaffe (1978). Type specimens of birds in the Merseyside County Museums (formerly City of Liverpool Museums).
  17. ^ a b Forbes, H. O. (1901). "Note on Lord Stanley's Water Hen". Bulletin of the Liverpool Museums. 3 (2): 62–68.
  18. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.25558
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  19. ^ Iredale, T. (1913). "On some interesting birds in the Vienna Museum". Austral Avian Record. 2 (1): 14–32.
  20. ^ Mathews, G. M. (1928). The birds of Norfolk & Lord Howe Islands and the Australasian South Polar quadrant: with additions to "The Birds of Australia". London: H. F. & G. Witherby.
  21. doi:10.1071/MU932017
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  22. doi:10.1071/MU940321
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  23. ISBN 978-0-486-21869-4
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  24. ISBN 978-0-87474-804-8
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  25. ^
    ISBN 978-1-873403-59-4
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  26. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8014-3954-4
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  27. doi:10.1642/AUK-14-114.1
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  28. ^
    S2CID 233485904
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  29. ^ van Grouw, H. (2013). "What colour is that bird? The causes and recognition of common colour aberrations in birds". British Birds. 106 (1–56): 17–29.
  30. ^ Hull, A. F. B. (1909). "The birds of Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 34: 636–693.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Porphyrio albus.
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