Kangaroo Island Emu

Kangaroo Island Emu ( drawing in Lionel Walter Rothschild's work Extinct Birds ( 1907) )

The Kangaroo Island Emu ( Dromaius baudinianus ) is an extinct species of bird in the family of emus ( Dromaiidae ). The run was a bird endemic to Kangaroo Island in South Australia. The species was extinct in 1836 at the latest.

Description

The Kangaroo Island Emu is known only from a few historical observations and of bones and Eiresten. The type was even smaller than the endemic Iceland on King Black Emu ( Dromaius ater). Maybe he had a white breast. In the South Australian Museum in Adelaide a reconstruction of a Kangaroo Island Emu was created.

Way of life

For life almost nothing is known. It is believed that the species living in the forests in the interior of the islands. But it has also apparently - especially at night - Beaches and surrounding sand dunes sought to drink at places with fresh water. The quite frequent animal lived in groups.

Discovery history and systematics

The Kangaroo Island Emu was only in 1984 recognized as a separate species.

Extinction

The last reliable detection is performed in the year 1819. The species was extinct in 1836 at the latest. Nicolas Baudin brought back from his expedition 1800-1804 to France with three animals, one of which lived in Paris until the year 1822.

The information on possible Aussterbeursachen are contradictory. The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Canberra reflects assumptions which claim that the extinction might have been caused primarily by repeated fire clearance for the conversion of forest and bush land to grassland; hunting has played according to the sources cited there only a small decline cause. According to IUCN, however, hunting was the main cause of extinction; IUCN According to a settler has the kind on the island systematically exterminated.