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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:32:26 GMT
Sebbe wrote
Ptilinopus mercierii This was a pigeon which once lived among the Marquesas Islands it had has recently been splited in two subspecies both are extinct today
Ptilinopus mercierii tristrami
This subspecies lived on Hivaoa island and it survived much longer search in 1970 and 1980 for this subspecies failed and it probably become extinct in the last 1960 also because of the great horned owl.
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:33:22 GMT
sebbe wrote
there is pictures on both subspecies in HBW volume 4
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:34:51 GMT
Red-mustached fruit-dove Ptilinopus mercierii tristrami 14 specimens of this Colombidae (small dove) were collected by the Whitney expedition in 1921-22 on the only breeding island, Hiva Oa (I. Marquises). It was already reported as an uncommon species. This sub-species was not found during intensive prospecting studies in 1971, 1975, and during the 1980's. The introduction of the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) on this island in 1927 could be an explanation for this extinction. The fruit-eating Red-mustached fruit-dove was usually observed feeding with individuals of another hardly distinguishable species, Ptilinopus dupetithouarsii. The species could be entirely extinct because the nominal subspecies (P. m. mercierii) disappeared in 1921. birds-of-oversea.chez.tiscali.fr/page40.html |
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:35:52 GMT
sebbe wrote
Hivia Oa Red-mustached Fruit Dove Ptilinopus mercierii tristrami
last observed ca. 1920 on Hivia Oa
arboreal island forest herbivore endemic to Marquesas Islands, Pacific Ocean
disappeared after introduction of rats
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:36:54 GMT
sebbe wrote
There is very little that can be said about the Marques fruit dove, apart from hte suggestion that it seems extinct. Sometimes called red-moustached fruit-dove (a name that aptly described it), it was an inhabitant of at least two of the Marquesas islands, Nukuhiva and Hivoa, far out in the middle of the south Pacific. It seems that it was a bird of the forest canopy which lived at the islands higer elevations, but it has not been seen for many, many years. Two races are described, rare mercierii came from Nukuhiva and the race tristrami from Hivoa. As far as can be ascertained, the Hivoa birds lasted rather longer than their counterparts and seem to have survived until at least the 1920s. From Nukuhiva the species may have been gone by the middle of the nineteenth century altough the records are not clear. The remote home islands of this dove where not often visited by ornithologists so it is not possible to make meaningful judgements. Even as late as 1985, a search was being made for survivors but it net with no success; nor could any islanders be found who remembered the bird, altough long before it had gone by the name of "pati".
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:37:52 GMT
melanie wrote Red-moustached Fruit-dove Ptilinopus mercierii was endemic to forest in the Marquesas, French Polynesia, with the nominate subspecies on Nuku Hiva and subspecies tristrami on Hiva Oa. While the former is only known from the type collected during the 1836–1839 voyage of the Venus, the latter is known from at least 11 specimens, the last collected by the Whitney Expedition in 1922. The species was reported on Hiva Oa in 1980, but this was probably a mistake. Its extinction has been attributed to predation by the introduced Great Horned Owl Bubo virginianus, as well as by introduced rats and cats www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=18780 |
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:38:26 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:42:05 GMT
 gap in nature |
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:44:45 GMT
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Post by another specialist on Aug 19, 2007 19:45:18 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2009 15:03:47 GMT
Ptilinopus mercierii tristrami  Photo taken by myself in the 'Museum für Natur und Völkerkunde' in Wittenberg / Germany. I was very, very surprised to see this bird there, it was labelled 'Flaumfußtaube' and was shown among several Parrots and Birds of Paradise.
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Post by sebbe67 on Jan 7, 2009 15:31:25 GMT
thats a beutiful photograph Alex.
You dont happen to have any on the bird of paradise specimens?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2009 16:11:10 GMT
You dont happen to have any on the bird of paradise specimens? No, sorry, I photographed only this bird.  |
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Post by another specialist on Jan 18, 2009 13:08:56 GMT
Great photo Noisi
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Post by another specialist on Sept 20, 2012 12:33:39 GMT
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Post by Melanie on May 5, 2013 12:31:35 GMT
Is someone here who knows when (in which year) Andrew Garrett collected the type of the Hiva Oa Red-moustached Fruit-Dove which is now on display in the Liverpool Museum? It must have been before 1892 (before Salvadori described this subspecies) and I think maybe in the 1870s (when Garrett visited French Polynesia).
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Post by Sebbe on May 31, 2014 20:09:53 GMT
As someone with a huge passion for the birds in the South Pacific the history of this extinct species have always intrigued me, it was an rather colorful and good sized species but our knowledge about it is pretty much limited to a small number of collections very many years apart, and even then it seems not much was recorded. At least the subspecies tristrami must have been reasonably common at some point.
The nominate race is only known from the type series collected on Nuku Hiva during the 1836–1839 voyage of the Venus, it was perhaps rare already then and possibly disappeared not long after that. Nuku Hiva an island which had early contact with American and European ships so I think introduced predators is a good guess for the decline and final extinction of the nominate race, but we will never know for sure. This is a good example of a bird which could very well have vanished without anyone ever really noticing (have sub-fossils ever been collected on Nuku Hiva?).
Not been able to find much about Andrew Garrett, but he was an american explorer (self taught naturalist and artist specializing in malacology and ichthyology) who established permanent residence on Huahine in 1870 and lived there for the rest of his life (sounds like the lifestyle of dreams), apparently he was employed as an collector by the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg between 1861 and up until 1885 (when the museum closed) and I assume most of his collections ended up there. Upon closure parts of the collections at Museum Godeffroy was dispersed to various museum collections in Europe, which probably means that parts of the collection records no longer exists.
Parts of Garrett's private collection (consisting of 8,000 species and 30,000 specimens) was acquired by the Bishop Museum (Hawaii) in 1879 but this seems an unlikely route for the holotype of the subspecies tristrami to end up in Liverpool.
It would be interesting to know whatever Thor Heyerdahl (Norwegian famous for his Kon-Tiki expedition) saw any on his visit to Hiva Oa in 1937, as he did spend some time in the interior of the island. As we know the species was reported as an uncommon on Hiva Oa already during the Whitney Expedition in 1922. The introduction of Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) in 1927 is believed to be one of the reasons why the subspecies tristrami finally went extinct, Mr. Heyerdahl visited 10 years later, aim wondering what impact the owls had done by then? it is puzzling with not a single record made past 1922 (that we know of) when it was clearly still present in some numbers around that time, a very sharp decline is the only reason I can think of.
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Post by Peter on Jun 1, 2014 16:20:09 GMT
Interesting. Have you read Thor Heyerdahl's report 'Paa Jakt efter Paradiset' (1938) or book 'Fatu-Hiva - Back to Nature' (1975)? Would be interesting to know if he mentions anything about Hiva Oa's wildlife.
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Post by Sebbe on Jun 1, 2014 16:53:34 GMT
I have read neither of Heyerdahl's books about his expeditions to the Marquesas Islands, but it would be interesting as in those days these islands were still relatively unspoilt (we were born to late etc.). The avifauna on these islands is in a tragic state these days, most native species are just barely surviving on smaller islands where predation by introduced black rats is a huge problem.
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Post by amongthylacines on Jun 1, 2014 19:08:03 GMT
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