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Post by Melanie on May 7, 2005 12:07:45 GMT
aka Pallas cormorant or Steller's cormorant
Pallas's Cormorant Phalacrocorax perspicillatus was restricted to Bering Island, in the Commander Islands, Russia, and possibly the adjacent coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Steller noted that it was common in 1741, but it was a poor flier and was heavily hunted for food by the Aleuts who settled on the island in 1826. The five known specimens were all collected between 1840–1850, and in 1882, Stejneger was told by the island's residents that the last birds had disappeared about 30 years before.
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Post by another specialist on Jun 3, 2005 7:31:09 GMT
IMAGE, click here!The Spectacled cormorant / Pallas' cormorant Phalacrocorax perspicillatus The Spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), a large, nearly flightless seabird lived on a few remote islands at the western end of the Aleutian chain. This species was first identified in 1741 by the naturalist George Steller, who traveled with the explorer Vitus Bering on his voyage of exploration and discovery of Alaska. Steller discovered the large, black birds while shipwrecked on a tiny island in the western Aleutians. This island was later named Bering Island because Vitus Bering and many of his crew died there during the long winter after the shipwreck. In midwinter, the stranded sailors, Steller among them, began killing the slow-moving and unwary cormorants for food. Steller wrote, "They weighed 12-14 pounds, so that one single bird was sufficient for 3 starving men." Like other cormorants, the spectacled cormorant fed on fish. Almost nothing else is known about this extinct bird. Steller was the only naturalist to see the spectacled cormorant alive. Others learned of the species through Steller's writing and brought specimens into museums in 1837. The population of spectacled cormorants declined quickly as whalers, fur traders and Aleut Natives (brought to Bering Island by the Russian-American Company) killed the birds for food and feathers. By 1850, fewer than 100 years after Steller first saw these seabirds, the spectacled cormorant became extinct. Steller's records, six specimens, and two skeletons are the only evidence that this species existed fewer than 200 years ago. web.tiscali.it/sv2001/Fact-sheets/Phpers_fact.htm
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Post by another specialist on Jun 3, 2005 7:32:18 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Jun 3, 2005 7:33:27 GMT
Spectacled Cormorant "They weighed 12-14 pounds, so that one single bird was sufficient for three starving men," wrote the explorer Georg Steller, who discovered the speciesand sampled its fleshwhile shipwrecked on a small Aleutian island in the North Pacific. The cormorant (below, left) was plump, clumsy, virtually flightless and easy for people to catch. It disappeared around 1850, about a century after Steller discovered it, eaten into extinction by hungry people. IMAGE, click here!www.nwf.org/internationalwildlife/2000/deadbird.html |
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Post by another specialist on Jun 8, 2005 6:53:36 GMT
aka Pallas cormorant or Steller's cormorant Pallas's Cormorant Phalacrocorax perspicillatus was restricted to Bering Island, in the Commander Islands, Russia, and possibly the adjacent coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Steller noted that it was common in 1741, but it was a poor flier and was heavily hunted for food by the Aleuts who settled on the island in 1826. The five known specimens were all collected between 1840–1850, and in 1882, Stejneger was told by the island's residents that the last birds had disappeared about 30 years before. source of information above www.birdlife.net/datazone/search/species_search.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=3669&m=0 |
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Post by another specialist on Jun 14, 2005 11:04:27 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Jun 14, 2005 11:06:20 GMT
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Post by Melanie on Jun 18, 2005 11:41:12 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Jun 18, 2005 15:47:11 GMT
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Post by sebbe67 on Oct 25, 2005 21:48:29 GMT
The Spectacled Cormorant ('''''Phalacrocorax perspicillatus''''') is an extinct marine bird of the cormorant family of seabirds that inhabited a few islands at the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The species was first identified by Georg Steller in 1741 on Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition. He described the bird as large, clumsy and almost flightless, and wrote "they weighed 12 - 14 pounds, so that one single bird was sufficient for three starving men." Apart from the fact that it fed on fish, almost nothing else is known about this bird. The population declined quickly when further visitors to the area collected the birds for food and feathers. It is believed the Spectacled Cormorant became extinct in 1850. This bird is also known as Pallas's Cormorant.
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Post by another specialist on Oct 26, 2005 20:24:18 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Nov 6, 2005 18:16:45 GMT
 gap in nature |
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Post by sebbe67 on Dec 18, 2005 0:07:44 GMT
The Spectacled Cormorant Phalacrocorax perspicillatus Pallas, 1811 has been described as "large, stupid, clumsy and almost flightless". It certainly was a large species, and without doubt it must have been clumsy on land. In fact, its clumsy gait and inexperience with humans may have led to its extinction. It made the bird an easy victim for seal-hunters and other hunters who killed the cormorant for its meat. Whether the species was flightless or not, remains an open question. Spectacled Cormorant. Discovered during an involuntary stay This large cormorant was discovered in 1741 by the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller. Steller discovered it while on an expedition with Vitus Bering in what is now known as the Bering Sea. At that time, the bird was still numerous on Bering Island, Commander Island and several other islands in the region. Steller's expedition found itself stranded on Bering Island between Siberia and Alaska, where its vessel, the St. Peter, was shipwrecked. During his involuntary stay here, Steller not only found the cormorant, but also a huge sea cow Hydrodamalis gigas: the largest of the sirenians. The Spectacled Cormorant survived until the middle of the 19th century. When Leonhard Stejneger, Norwegian by birth and Curator of the U.S. National Museum, visited the area in 1882, the species had not been seen for 30 years. Natives told Stejneger that its last stronghold had been the small island named Aij Kamen. Spectacled Cormorant. Photograph by Rosamond Purcell from Swift as a Shadow. © 1999. The museum collection Very few specimens of the Spectacled Cormorant have been preserved. In fact, probably none would have been saved but for Governor Kuprianof of the Sitka district in Russian Alaska. All seven museum specimens known today were sold or donated by him. The specimen in the National Museum of Natural History was originally shipped to the museum in St. Petersburg, which donated it to Leiden. Of the other six, two skins are stored in Tring, England, two in St. Petersburg, one in Dresden and the sixth in the museum in Helsinki. inlucdes three photos www.naturalis.nl/300pearls/ |
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Post by another specialist on Dec 25, 2005 18:00:41 GMT
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Post by sebbe67 on Jan 22, 2006 15:53:19 GMT
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Post by Prolagus on Jan 25, 2006 14:11:48 GMT
Very nice pics!
This species is relative to the flightless Galapsgos Cormorant which live on the Galapagos Islands.
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Post by another specialist on Jan 26, 2006 15:08:46 GMT
Very nice pics! This species is relative to the flightless Galapsgos Cormorant which live on the Galapagos Islands. Its related to all known comorants. Plus nice pic sebbe67 |
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Post by Carlos on Jan 26, 2006 18:31:55 GMT
A bit more of additional information given by Greenway (1958: 159).
"It is quite possible that the birds never bred on the Bering Island itself but only on small islands off the shore, for there was a very large, hungry population of Arctic blue foxes on the main island when Bering's expedition was wrecked there in 1741. Bering Island had never, or at any rate very seldom, been visited before that time, for the foxes and sea otters were completely fearless"
It is curious because it agrees with the last species stronghold at Aij Kamen, a small island off Bering Is.
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Post by another specialist on Jan 31, 2006 10:25:12 GMT
very interesting Carlos
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Post by another specialist on Jan 31, 2006 10:25:34 GMT
Spectacled cormorant, Phalacrocorax perspicillatus The Spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), a large, nearly flightless seabird lived on a few remote islands at the western end of the Aleutian chain. This species was first identified in 1741 by the naturalist George Steller, who traveled with the explorer Vitus Bering on his voyage of exploration and discovery of Northern Pacific Ocean. Steller discovered the large, black birds while shipwrecked on a tiny island in the western Aleutians. This island was later named Bering Island because Vitus Bering and many of his crew died there during the long winter after the shipwreck. In midwinter, the stranded sailors, Steller among them, began killing the slow-moving and unwary cormorants for food. Steller wrote, "They weighed 12-14 pounds, so that one single bird was sufficient for 3 starving men." Like other cormorants, the spectacled cormorant fed on fish. Almost nothing else is known about this extinct bird. Steller was the only naturalist to see the spectacled cormorant alive. Others learned of the species through Steller's writing and brought specimens into museums in 1837. The population of spectacled cormorants declined quickly as whalers, fur traders and Aleut Natives killed the birds for food and feathers. By 1850, fewer than 100 years after Steller first saw these seabirds, the spectacled cormorant became extinct. Steller's records, six specimens, and two skeletons are the only evidence that this species existed fewer than 200 years ago. Based upon "Alaska Species Now Extinct", Alaska Department of Fish and Game - Wildlife Conservation www.vulkaner.no/t/kamchat/spec-cormorant.html |
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