Niihau Elepaio (Monarcha sp.)
The island of Ni’ihau, which is located very close to Kaua’i in the Hawaiian Islands, was once covered with typical Hawaiian lowland forests, which now are gone completely.
Today, the island harbors a few sea bird breeding colonies, but once it almost for certain also had several land bird species, some of which might very well have been endemic to the island; among these might have been a distinct form of Elepaio, which otherwise is known to inhabit the islands of Hawai’i, O’ahu and Kaua’i with distinct, island-specific species on each island.
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edited: 07.05.2022
Tag Archives: Niihau
Carelia sinclairi Ancey
Sinclair’s Carelia Snail (Carelia sinclairi)
Sinclair’s Carelia Snail was described in 1892 based on several subfossil specimens.
The species is the only member of its genus known so far to have occurred on the island of Ni’ihau, Hawaiian Islands.
The shells are very common in the fossil deposits of the island, and about 1000 specimens alone are kept in the collections of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu, O’ahu. [1]
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Sinclair’s Carelia Snail is quite different from its congeners and, in my opinion, should be placed in a distinct genus.
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References:
[1] C. Montague Cooke Jr.: The land snail genus Carelia. Bishop Museum Bulletin 85: 1-97. 1931
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(public domain)
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edited: 01.04.2018
Delissea niihauensis H. St. John
Niihau Delissea (Delissea niihauensis)
The Niihau Delissea was endemic to the island of Ni’ihau, Hawaiian Islands.
The species is apparently only known from some specimens collected in the 19th century, it wasn’t seen since the late 1870s and is now extinct.
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edited: 04.04.2018