Rodrigues Starling

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iRodrigues Starling
Conservation status
Extinct  (18th. Century)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Sturnidae Genus: Necropsar Slater, 1879 Species: N. rodericanus
Binomial name
Necropsar rodericanus Slater, A. Günther & A. Newton, 1879

The Rodrigues Starling (Necropsar rodericanus), also known as White Mascarene Starling, is a hypothetical species whose existence is based on an old travel report, a few subfossil bones, and a museum skin from Liverpool which was later identified by paleontologist Storrs Olson as albinistic specimen of the Martinique Trembler.

In 1726 there was a travel report by French explorer Julien Tafforet who described a bird later named Testudophaga bicolor. According to Tafforet it lived on "Ilet au Mát" (today Île Gombrani, an ofshore islet of Rodrigues). It had reached the size of a blackbird. The plumage was white. Tail and wings were dark. Legs and bill were pale yellow. Its diet consisted of turtle eggs.

In 1874 Revd. H. H. Slater found subfossil bone remains on Rodrigues which were the basis of the first scientifical discussion by Albert Günther and Alfred Newton in 1879. According to Günther and Newton it was closely related to the Bourbon Crested Starling and so they classified this species into the genus Fregilupus.

Finally in 1898 there was an unique skin in the World Museum Liverpool. It was described by Henry Ogg Forbes under the name Necropsar leguati and sketched by bird illustrator John Gerrard Keulemans. This specimen was obtained by Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby from bird collector Jules Verreaux in 1850 and was on display in the Liverpool Museum since then.

However, in April 2000 DNA-analysis of that skin in the Smithsonian Institution led by Storrs Olson had shown that the Liverpool specimen was nothing more than a misidentified and mislabled albinistic specimen of the Martinique Trembler (Cinclocerthia gutturalis). ^[1] (Olson et al., Bull. B.O.C. 125:31, 2003). In contrast to Olson the IUCN regarded the Rodrigues Starling still as valid species because Tafforet's report and Slaters bones are still an evidence that these species could have exist.

[edit] References

1. ^ Expunging the Mascarene starling Necropsar leguati

[edit] Further reading

• Greenway, James (1967): "Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World", Dover Publications Inc. New York, ISBN 0-486-21869-4
• Errol Fuller (2000). "Extinct Birds", ISBN 0-8160-1833-2
• David Day (1981). "The Doomsday Book of Animals" , Ebury Press, London, ISBN 0670279870

[edit] External links

• BirdLife International (2004). Necropsar rodericanus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 7 Nov 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is extinct