Kauai-Palila

The Kauai Palila ( Loxioides kikuchi ), also called Pilas Palila, an extinct Singvogelart of the subfamily of dresses birds ( Drepanidinae ). The specific epithet honors William " Pila " Kikuchi and Delores who assisted in the 1990s with the paleontological excavations on Kauai.

Features

The Kauai Palila is only known from two upper jaw, which were promoted in December 1997 and in August 1998 in Makauwahi Cave in Koloa Quad Range on Kauai for days. In both mandibles a part of the left lateral nasal extension is missing. The Kauai Palila was larger than his last living relative of the island of Hawaii. He also had no hook-shaped beak, so that it can be considered from another food as the Palila ( Loxioides bailleui ). In relation to the width of the upper beak was short and extremely bent backwards.

Extinction

The subfossil remains were discovered in a stratigraphic unit, which is dated to an age of 300 to 600 years. Storrs Lovejoy Olson and Helen Frances James, who have the kind described in 2006, suggests that the Kauai Palila could have survived until the late 18th or early 19th century up to and until the colonization of Kauai by the Europeans became extinct. Apparently he was also overlooked during the expeditions of Captains James Cook and James King in the years 1778 and 1779 as the excursions of John Kirk Townsend and Thomas Nuttall in 1835.