Dusky Scrubfowl
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| Megapodius freycinet Gaimard, 1823 |
The Dusky Scrubfowl, Megapodius freycinet, is a medium-sized, up to 41cm long, black megapode with short pointed crest, bare red facial skin, dark legs, brown iris and yellow-tipped dark brown bill. Both sexes are similar.
The Dusky Scrubfowl lives in the wetlands of North Maluku and West Papua islands. The nest mound is built from earth mixed with leaves, sand, gravel and sticks.
The scientific name commemorates the French explorer Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet.
A common species throughout its range, the Dusky Scrubfowl is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Valued as a food species, the Dusky Scrubfowl is known from archaeological evidence to have been overhunted and driven to local extinction on Tikopia after the arrival of humans on the island in the ninth century BCE.[1]
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[edit] References
- ^ Kirch, Patrick Viinton, Tikopia; The History and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 1982. p. 282
- BirdLife International (2004). Megapodius freycinet. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 1 November 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
