Huahine Starling

The Huahine -Star ( Aplonis diluvialis ) is an extinct passerine bird in the family of starlings. He was endemic to the Polynesian island of Huahine and had thus the easternmost area of ​​distribution of all occurring in Oceania star species of the genus Aplonis. The Huahine - Star is known only by a subfossil tarsometatarsus, which was unearthed in the north of Huahine in 1984 by American archaeologist and anthropologist Yosihiko H. Sinoto Bernice P. Bishop Museum from the deposit Faahia and 1989 described by David William Steadman scientifically. The bone has a length of 38 mm and a comparison with the other species of the genus Tarsometatarsi Aplonis suggests that the Huahine star was surpassed in size only by the Samoa -Star ( Aplonis atrifusca ). The extinction of Huahine - Stars is probably due to Polynesian settlers, 750-1250 AD clearing forests, brought non- native plant species and enabled rats and non-native bird species to spread to Huahine and einzuschleppen epidemics.

Steadman measures the Fund at a great importance since it has significantly expanded the knowledge about the distribution of Aplonis species. According to Steadman, a drawing by Georg Forster in 1774 that a mysterious bird from the island of Raiatea (formerly called Ulieta ) represents could not be accepted as erroneously represent a thrushes, but a relative of Huahine - Stars, as the Stare probably occurred not only on Huahine, but also on the neighboring island situated south-west of Huahine Raiatea.

Etymology

The specific epithet refers to the Latin word " diluvium " for flood and refers to the fact that the layers of the deposit of Faahia today are saturated with groundwater and were overlaid with accumulated by storm waves sand.