This form was described in 1941; it is known from the forested areas of Mt. Tonomwan on Tonowas Island as well as from Mt. Tonnachau on Weno Island, both in the east of the Chuuk lagoon in Micronesia. [1]
The name of this form does appear in listings of extinct mollusks; thus, I will mention it here as well. [2]
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References:
[1] H. Burrington Baker: Zonitid Landsnails from Pacific islands; parts 3 and 4. Bishop Museum Bulletin 166: 201-370. 1941
[2] Claire Régnier; Guillaume Achaz; Amaury Lambert; Robert H. Cowie; Philippe Bouchet; Benoît Fontaine: Mass extinction in poorly known taxa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 1-6. 2015
The Pohnpei Starling was restricted to the mountainous areas in the interior of Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia.
The species reaches a length of 19 cm, it is mainly inconspicuously dark greyish brown colored.
The Pohnpei Starling was last recorded in 1956 and was finally declared extinct in 1990, however, five years later a single female specimen was obtained by a native hunter and thus the species was deemed as having been rediscovered, the species was apparently subsequently found again in 2008, but since then there has not been any trace of it and it is now thought to be extinct.
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Photo: Huub Veldhuijzen van Zanten; Naturalis Biodiversity Center
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Freiherr von Kittlitz, the discoverer of the species, writes in the year 1858.:
“Here on Ualan a very similar bird is found, but it comes from the family of the rails. It lives solitary on the ground on these always soggy, deeply shadowed places of the forests. One can hear here from time to time its pervasive mating call; its body, which roughly matches that of a quail in size, is considerably less as in the remainder rails compressed; furthermore it carries the tail, which is missing the rectrices, not upright like those. Its appearance is much more those of a young, still completely tailless domestic chicken. The whole plumage is dull black, tinged whitish at the chin, the bill black, the naked eyelids are like the feet fine red like lead tetroxide, the eyes somewhat darker red like sealing wax. The tongue is of the length of the bill, at the tip flat and like horn. The bird is not common on Ualan and moreover because of its little accessible whereabouts also difficult to hunt. Maybe it is Rallus tabuensis, of which a short description is found in Latham’s Index ornithologicus. In Petersburg I did left behind a completely engraved copper plate with a depiction of this bird; I don’t know, if from the same since 1853 has still made use of. I myself had not liked to make the decision to declare the species for a new one; would it be so, however, I’d like to give it the name Rallus Monasa. The natives of Ualan name them as Setamanot.“ [2]
The bird can be found (very tiny, in the left front) on a depiction from F. W. H. von Kittlitz’s ‘Vierundzwanzig Vegetations-Ansichten von Küstenländern und Inseln des Stillen Oceans’ from the year 1844.
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Depiction from: ‘F. W. H. von Kittlitz: Vierundzwanzig Vegetations-Ansichten von Küstenländern und Inseln des Stillen Oceans, aufgenommen in den Jahren 1827, 28 und 29 auf der Entdeckungsreise der Kaiserlich-Russischen Corvette Senjawin unter Capitain Lütke. Siegen: Friedrich 1844’
[1] F. W. H. von Kittlitz: Vierundzwanzig Vegetations-Ansichten von Küstenländern und Inseln des Stillen Oceans, aufgenommen in den Jahren 1827, 28 und 29 auf der Entdeckungsreise der Kaiserlich-Russischen Corvette Senjawin unter Capitain Lütke. Siegen: Friedrich 1844 [2] F. H. v. Kittlitz. Denkwürdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka, Gotha 1858 [3] Dieter Luther: Die ausgestorbenen Vögel der Welt. Westarp Wissenschaften 1986 [4] H. Douglas Pratt, Phillip L. Bruner, Delwyn G. Berrett: A Field Guide to the Birds of Hawaii and the Tropical Pacific. Princeton University Press 1987 [5] Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds. Penguin Books (England) 1987 [6] Barry Taylor, Ber van Perlo: Rails: A Guide to the Rails, Crakes, Gallinules and Coots of the World. Yale University Press 1998 [7] Beth Slikas; Storrs L. Olson; Robert C. Fleischer: Rapid, independent evolution of flightlessness in four species of Pacific Island rails (Rallidae): an analysis based on mitochondrial sequence data. Journal of Avian Biology 33: 5-14. 2002
The 20 to 25 cm long Kosrae Starling occurred only in the mountain forests of the island of Kosrae, the species is known from only five specimens, that were shot in the years 1827 and 1828.
Friedrich Heinrich von Kittlitz writes in 1832 in his work ‘Kupfertafeln zur Naturgeschichte der Vögel’ about this bird.:
“Fig.3 is a new species, which I found on the island of Ualan, and have named Lamprothornis corvina. Description and life-sized portraiture ought to have appeared in the newest memoirs of the Academy of Petersburg. It obviously connects itself to Fig 2 [Aplonis opaca], but also differs very essential from this by its far more animalic diet; large insects, as cicadas and suchlike, and small lizards, making up the main objects of the very same and only secondarily exchange with fruits, and yet the stomach is smaller and much more muscular as in that species. This is a very lonely bird, which inhabits the deepest mountainous woodlands and flees the vicinity of humans; the still unmoulted young are yellowish white and mottled blackish brown, in the olds both sexes black. ”
The species died out short time after, even field searches at the end of the 19th century were unsuccessful.
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References:
[1] Dieter Luther: Die ausgestorbenen Vögel der Welt. Westarp Wissenschaften 1986 [2] Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds. Penguin Books (England) 1987
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Depiction from: ‘F. H. von Kittlitz: Über einige noch unbeschriebene Vögel von der Insel Luzon, den Carolinen und den Marianen. Mémoires présentés à l’Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg par divers Savants et lus dans ses Assemblées 2: 1-10. 1835’
