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Post by Melanie on May 22, 2005 14:54:14 GMT
Rodrigues Night-Heron Nycticorax megacephalus is known from a number of bones, and from Leguat's 1708 and Tafforet's 1726 accounts, from Rodrigues, Mauritius.
Leguat mentioned that they were easily caught (although they were not quite flightless), and this hunting presumably caused their extinction. In 1761, Pingré specifically noted that there were no longer any butors on the island.
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Post by another specialist on Jun 6, 2005 6:25:19 GMT
Nycticorax megacephalus
Milne-Edwards 1874
Subrecent, Rodrigues, e Mascarene Islands, wc Indian Ocean
Primary materials: Types: cranium, coracoïdeum, sternum, humerus, femur, metacarpus, tibiotarsus, tarsometatarsus, vertebrae, pelvis, scapula, ulna, radius, phalanx
Pierce Brodkorb,
Catalogue of fossil birds. Part 1 (Archaeopterygiformes through Ardeiformes)
Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 7, 4 (1963): 179-293
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Post by another specialist on Jun 8, 2005 3:37:16 GMT
Correct spelling is Nycticorax megalocephala
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Post by another specialist on Jun 8, 2005 7:11:13 GMT
Family/Sub-family ARDEIDAE Species name author (Milne-Edwards, 1873) Taxonomic source(s) Summary Nycticorax megacephalus is known from a number of bones2, and from Leguat's 1708 and Tafforet's 1726 accounts1, from Rodrigues, Mauritius. Leguat mentioned that they were easily caught3 (although they were not quite flightless1), and this hunting presumably caused their extinction. In 1761, Pingré specifically noted that there were no longer any butors on the island1. www.birdlife.net/datazone/search/species_search.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=30101&m=0 |
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Post by Melanie on Nov 22, 2006 6:25:00 GMT
Genus Nycticorax Forster
Megaphoyx Hachisuka 1937b: 148 [type by original designation, Ardea megacephala
Milne-Edwards, 1874].
Each of the three Mascarene islands sustained an extinct species
of Nycticorax. The first of these species was described
from Rodrigues by Milne-Edwards (1874) under the name
Ardea megacephala. Giinther and Newton (1879) showed that
the Rodrigues heron belonged in the genus Nycticorax and that,
although its size was not very different from a large modern N.
nycticorax (Linnaeus), its wing bones were proportionally
shorter and its femur, tarsometatarsus, and pedal phalanges
proportionally longer. Actually, when compared with typical
N. nycticorax nycticorax, the wings are not very short, but the
femora, tibiotarsi, and tarsometatarsi are wider, longer, and
more robust (Cowles, 1987). Newton and Gadow (1893) described
a second, Mauritian species, Butorides mauritianus,
which is smaller than N. megacephalus, and then Rothschild
(1907) described a third species, from Reunion, under the name
of Ardea duboisi. Rothschild placed the three species in the genus
Ardea but wrote (1907:115): "From the short, stout legs
and general build, I am inclined to think that all three of these
Herons belong to the genus Nycticorax." Later, other authors
(Lambrecht, 1933; Hachisuka, 1953; Brodkorb, 1963) placed
the three species in different genera, and it was Cowles (1987)
who first formally united them in the genus Nycticorax.
Nycticorax duboisi (Rothschild, 1907), new combination
Reunion Night Heron
FIGURE 4a-h
"Butors ou Grands Gauziers" Dubois, 1674:169.
Ardea duboisi Rothschild, 1907:114 [based on birds described by Dubois
(1674) from Bourbon (= Reunion Island)].
Megaphoyx duboisi.—Hachisuka, 1953:175.
Nycticorax n. sp. Cowles, 1987:94.
Nycticorax borbonensis Cowles, 1994:90, fig.ld,e [new synonymy; holotype,
distal half of left tibiotarsus MNHN, LAC 1993-35, from bed 4, Grotte des
Premiers Francais (Grande Caverne), Reunion Island].
MATERIAL.—Grotte des Premiers Francais: Holotype of N.
borbonensis (see below).
Grotte de l'Autel: r. scapula, 330516.
Marais de l'Ermitage: r. scapula, 1866; 1. p. coracoid,
1831; 1. d. humerus, 1826; r. ulna, 1828; 1. p. ulna, 1832; r. femur,
1827; 2 r. d. tibiotarsi, 1829, 1830; r. tarsometatarsus,
1916; 2 1. d. tarsometatarsi, 1865, 1917.
DESCRIPTION AND COMPARISONS.—The material from
Reunion agrees perfectly with the genus Nycticorax. The different
species of this genus show much variation in size, the
largest being N. caledonicus (Gmelin), which lives in Indonesia,
Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and in some Pacific duboisi are larger than the largest individuals of N. nycticorax
or N. caledonicus in the USNM collection.
The supratendinal bridge is incompletely ossified in the
three tibiotarsi of N. duboisi. The condition is unknown in N.
mauritianus, whereas in N. megacephalus the supratendinal
bridge is completely ossified (Milne-Edwards, 1874, pl. 14:
fig. 7). The dimensions of Mascarene Nycticorax are given in
Table 2. Most of the remains ofN. duboisi are larger than those
of either N. megacephalus or N. mauritianus (Figure Ai-j), except
for the tarsometatarsus, which is almost the same size as in
N. megacephalus, and the femur, which is smaller in most dimensions
than that in N. megacephalus.
The ratio-diagram (Figure 2) shows the differences in the relative
proportions of the bones in the three Mascarene species,
compared with the modern species N. nycticorax and N caledonicus.
In N. mauritianus and N. megacephalus the wings
(humeri, ulnae, carpometacarpi) are considerably reduced, and
the legs (particularly the femora) are longer than in modern
species. In contrast, N. duboisi is larger than living species, but
the proportions are almost the same. The tarsometatarsus is
slightly longer than in N. nycticorax or N. caledonicus, but
only two are available, and for one of them the length is estimated.
The ratio-diagram clearly demonstrates that the Rodrigues
and Mauritius species had a reduced flying ability,
whereas the Reunion form had a flying ability quite similar to
that of living species.
By the proportions of the tarsometatarsus, which is short and
thick, the Mascarene night herons are more similar to Nycticorax
nycticorax than to other congeners, particularly N. caledonicus. In the case of N. megacephalus and N. mauritianus,
however, the robustness of the tarsometatarsus is probably accentuated
by the reduced flying ability (Table 3).
The Reunion night heron had green feet and had gray plumage
flecked with white, a description that fits very well with the
juvenile plumage of Nycticorax nycticorax.
REMARKS.—Cowles (1994) thought that the species name
Ardea duboisi, created by Rothschild (1907), was a nomen nudum,
but actually this name, published with a description, is
valid. It has been used several times (Hachisuka, 1953; Greenway,
1967) and therefore must be retained, in conformity with
the law of priority. Many other accepted scientific names of
Mascarene birds are based on similar descriptions.
The description given by Dubois is as follows: "Bitterns or
Great throats, large as big capons [domestic fowl, Gallus gallus
(Linnaeus)], but fat and good [to eat]. They have grey plumage,
each feather tipped with white, the neck and beak like a heron
and the feet green, made like the feet of the 'Poullets dTnde'
[domestic turkey, Meleagris gallopavo (Linnaeus)]. That lives
on fish" (Barre and Barau, 1982:30, our translation). Dubois'
words "Butors ou Grands Gauziers" were left in French by 01-iver (1897) but afterward were translated into English by Rothschild
(1907:114) as "Bitterns or Great Egrets." The word gosier,
in old French gauzier, does not mean "egret" but "throat,"
and the words grand gosier designated both pelicans and the
"argalas" of India {Leptoptilus dubius (Gmelin)).
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Post by another specialist on Aug 26, 2007 18:09:16 GMT
extinction date: between 1726 and 1761 This species has been described on the basis of several bones. But there are also some contemporary mentions by a man named Leguat in 1708 and a man named Tafforet in 1726. In this accounts it is said that the birds were easy to catch, because they did not know fear about man. Surely this tameness was eventually their fate, because the herons could also easily be catched by introduced cats and dogs. www.extinct.minks-lang.de/7voegel/a.birdsarten.n-z/nycticorax.megacephalus1.htm |
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Post by another specialist on Jul 20, 2008 16:25:13 GMT
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Post by Melanie on Jul 19, 2023 14:07:48 GMT
Osteological and historical data on extinct island night herons (Aves: Ardeidae), with special reference to Ascension Island, the Mascarenes and Bonin Islands Abstract Night herons of the genus Nycticorax and Nyctanassa are adept island colonisers, occurring on a number of oceanic islands and island archipelagos. Continental species and those inhabiting large islands are generally not considered threatened, whereas night herons restricted to small, oceanic islands are particularly vulnerable to human interference. As a result, six out of nine described species and one subspecies, all derived from Nycticorax nycticorax, Nycticorax caledonicus or Nyctanassa violacea, are now extinct whereas a further three extinct species await description. The extinct island endemics generally exhibit morphological adaptations to an insular environment and diet, such as an increase or decrease in size, robust jaws and legs, and smaller wings with associated reduced flying ability than founding stock. Here I present an osteological comparison along with historical descriptions of the extinct, oceanic island night herons, with special reference to the Mascarene and Ascension fossil species, and Bonin Island subspecies, and show the degree of morphological changes between the founding and island taxa. I further discuss the reasons why they became extinct. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016699523000591?via%3Dihub |
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