Wood Harrier
The forest Harrier (Circus dossenus ) is an extinct bird of prey in the genus harriers (Circus ), which was located on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Molokai. She lived in the Holocene and was smaller and lighter than any extant orders. The consecration forest inhabited dense forests and fed presumably by birds and insects. In all likelihood, she died as a result of colonization of Hawaii by the Polynesians and the entrained with them invasive species.
Features
The forest consecration was the smallest known Weihenart. The skeletal parts found do not reach the size of those of recent ordinations. Only in the length of the thigh bone, the forest is approximately ordination with the Harrier ( C. pygargus ) and the Pied Harrier (C. melanoleucus ) is equal. Note the proportionally short wings and breast bone, remember the more representatives of the hawks (Accipiter ) and probably represent an adaptation to the island, wooded environment.
Habitat
The consecration forest inhabited dense subtropical forests, as orherrschten in Hawaii before the arrival of humans and exist in parts even today. There they fed in all probability on insects and small birds such as dresses birds, as all of today's Hawaiian land mammals arrived only with the Polynesians to the islands. In particular, the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans ) and the avian malaria contributed to the extinction of many endemic species, making the forest consecration must have been doubly affected as ground-nesting birds and predators. The same fate also befell other birds, such as owls of the genus Grallistrix.
Dissemination
As of today, it can be assumed that the forest consecration was endemic to Hawaii. The subfossil findings are currently limited to Molokai, and Oahu, where only very rudimentary remains were found. The distribution probably also included are other islands that were connected before the last ice age with Molokai to Maui Nui.
Discovery and classification
Remains of the forest consecration were first discovered in the 1980s by Storrs Olson and Helen James on Oahu. The unusual for harriers proportions of the paucity of preserved bones led - similar to the New Zealand Eyles - Harrier ( C. eylesi ) - means that the species of the two was mistaken for a hawk and described as such. Only in 1991 were able to correct this assumption on the basis of new material from Molokai and describe the species as members of the Harriers and James Olson. As an epithet they chose dossenus what they declared as follows:
" Dossenus, Latin for a clown or fool, without the essential parts of all Circus; here particularly appropriate insofar as the nature has kept us at the beginning fool in terms of their genus affiliation. "
They noticed to that ordinations are penetrated deeper into the Pacific islands as hawks: the former had merely reached Fiji in the course of their evolution, while the marsh harrier ( C. approximans ) had come up to Tonga. Also there had been in Hawaii already sightings of Hen Harrier (C. cyaneus ), or Hudsonweihe (C. hudsonius ), which leave the development of a Hawaiian Weihenart seem plausible.
Extinction
The forest consecration is known only from subfossil bones and probably died out before the Europeans reached Hawaii. Since most ground-nesting birds are, the way would be as such have been vulnerable to the Polynesians of the entrained from the 13th century Pacific rats and pigs; on top of that the forest consecration was probably also dependent on intact, dense forests. The clearing of these forests could have been the main cause of their disappearance.