Sarcidiornis mauritania (Mascarene Swan)

[Carlos]

This presumed swan never existed, It is just a chain of mistakes and misidentifications of the two Mascarene Alopochen. So it's hard to find a picture of an imaginary species.

[cryptodude100]

I don't believe that Carlos! There were two species of swan that once lived on Malta.

[Deleted]

Hi !

There's also no swan on Africa, no swan on Madagascar, there is no swan in South-East Asia, so why should there have been one on Mauritius ?

This rumour of an mauritian swan only exists because someone said Sarcidiornis would be a swan. That's all !

BTW: As far as I know it is not definitely known if the maltese - and other mediterranean swans were truly swans, some have sometimes also been placed in the genus Anser.

[adzebill]

The Portuguese, when they dicovered Mauritius, named it "Ilha do Cisne" (Swan Island). That's possibly because it was assumed that there were swans in Mauritius, but surely the birds that they think were swans were, in fact, the geese or even the dodo.

The Maltese swan (if it was really a swan) has received the scintific name of Cygnus falconeri, but I think it's a pleistocene extinction.

[Deleted]

... a suggestion ...

It is almost well known that birds on islands often show partiell albinism. So could it not be possible, that the Portuguese saw more or less white geese, white Alopochen mauritianus ?

[adzebill]

It is almost well known that birds on islands often show partiell albinism. So could it not be possible, that the Portuguese saw more or less white geese, white Alopochen mauritianus ?

Or maybe A. mauritianus was a pale-coloured bird, or even almost white. Who knows? I think that, sadly, there are no precise descriptions of the plumage of this bird.

[Deleted]

adzebill said:

I think that, sadly, there are no precise descriptions of the plumage of this bird.

... but I'm sure there is a description of the taste of its meat.

[dysmorodrepanis]

Original record by Marshall:
"There are many Geese; the halfe of their wings toward the end are black and the other halfe white; they are not large, but fat and good."

"the halfe of their wings..." - compare web.archive.org/web/20070405112657/http://digitalfotografie-online.de/data/media/73/IMG_8135.jpg

Though the Mauritius species quite possibly was in fact a bit lighter (or just less saturated) in coloration than the Egyptian one shown here - in strong-colored birds of the extant species such as the one on the photo, the rusty brown tertiar coverts will cover the white primary coverts in sitting birds (though one may safely assume that Marshall's men had plenty of opportunity to watch the birds spread their wings when trying to escape the fate of becoming "fat and good" dinner...)

[Deleted]

Hi!

Alopochen in white:



found here:

digilander.libero.it/Avifaunacesenate/Photo_list.htm

[dysmorodrepanis]

no, the only white part were the secondary coverts. the remainder must have been light greyish-brown - if it would have been white or any other color geese don't usually have, Marshall would have found it worthy of mention, as he did with the fact that the wings did not look like in Anser geese.

[another specialist]

Extinct birds : an attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times : that is, within the last six or seven hundred years : to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction (1907)