Mascarene Coot

Mascarene Coot (Fulica newtoni )

The Mascarene Coot (Fulica newtoni ) is an extinct species of bird in the family of Rails. It is known only from four trip reports and subfossilem of bone material. The distribution area was limited to Mauritius and Réunion. In either epithet Alfred Newton and Edward Newton is honored who have both worked on this bird.

Features

1674 wrote the French abbot and travelers Sieur Dubois in his report " Les Voyages " that the moorhens (French Poule d' eau ) from the island of Bourbon ( Réunion), were close to the size of the domestic chicken. The plumage was completely black and at the top there was a large white forehead shield. The type material from the Mare aux Songes in Mauritius deposit contains 16 tibias, 30 metatarsals, 8 humerus, 2 sternum, pelvis 4 fragments, a completely preserved basin, a completely preserved sacrum and three cervical vertebrae. It is kept in the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring. Additional material has been funded since 1974 in the cave deposits of Premier Francais, Grotte de l' Autel and Marais de l' Ermitage on Réunion days.

Way of life

The Mascarene Coot was unable to fly, but a good runner and swimmer. It never wandered far away from the lakes and watercourses. The nests were built on the banks of edges.

Extinction

When François Martin first visited Réunion in 1665, he remarked that " the populated river basin in Saint- Gilles with geese and chickens pond and the depths were full of fish. The familiarity of moorhens allowed that one came up close enough to them to grab them with your bare hands. "Two years later wrote Martin, " that the geese and moorhens that once a common occurrence in the lagoon of Saint -Paul, no longer existed. " in a trip report from 1708 François Leguat wrote that" the moorhens on Mauritius in 1693 were very rare ". Shortly thereafter, the Mascarene Coot was gone. Probably over-hunting and the destruction of wetlands for the extermination of the species have contributed.

System

1867 Alphonse Milne -Edwards described this taxon first time as Fulica newtonii based on subfossilem bone material from the island of Mauritius. In an article about this species from 1893, the English ornithologist Henry Ogg Forbes was of the view that the Mascarene Coot and also the extinct Chatham Coot (Fulica chathamensis ) would be identical for both taxa and created the new genus Palaeolimnas with Palaeolimnas newtoni as the sole representative. 1896 Charles William Andrews demonstrated the differences between the Mascarene Coot and the Chatham - coot, but kept the genus Palaeolimnas for both types at. During a reconsideration of Forbes ' nomenclature in 1962 presented the paleontologists Elliot W. Dawson and Pierce Brodkorb found that the genus description Palaeolimnas based on the cranial features of the Chatham - coot and transferred this taxon, therefore, together with the New Zealand coot in the new genus Nesophalaris. The Mascarene Coot was put back into the genus Fulica and the name Palaeolimnas been deleted. Paleontologist Storrs Olson suggested that both Fulica Fulica chathamensis newtoni as well as from ordinary Coot (Fulica atra) and have derived their size and inability to fly independently developed. Since 1975, the Chatham - coot and the New Zealand Coot are also in the genus Fulica.