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Rodrigues Blue Pigeon
The Rodrigues blue pigeon (''Alectroenas payandeei'') is an extinct species of blue pigeon which was endemic to Rodrigues. It is known only from the holotype tarsometatarsus collected in 2005, associated with remains of a Rodrigues night heron The Rodrigues night heron (''Nycticorax megacephalus'') is an extinct species of heron formerly occurring on the Mascarene island of Rodrigues (island), Rodrigues. Taxonomy It is known from subfossil bones and the 1708 description of François L ... and a Rodrigues rail. A femur described in 1879 but now lost may also have belonged to the species.Hume, J.P. 2011: Systematics, morphology, and ecology of pigeons and doves (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands, with three new species. ''Zootaxa'', 3124: 1-62Preview (paperback) (online edition) It was not specifically mentioned by contemporary writers, and it is therefore unknown when it became extinct. References {{Taxonbar, from=Q15707873 Fauna of Rodrigues Extinct birds of In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Hume
Julian Pender Hume (born 3 March 1960) is an English palaeontologist, artist and writer who lives in Wickham, Hampshire. He was born in Ashford, Kent, and grew up in Portsmouth, England. He attended Crookhorn Comprehensive School between 1971 and 1976. His career began as an artist, specialising in the reconstruction of extinct species, after which he undertook a degree in palaeontology at the University of Portsmouth, followed by a PhD in the same subject, jointly hosted by the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History Museum, London and Tring. He is presently a research associate at the Natural History Museum, and has travelled extensively, working on fossil excavations that include the Cape Verde Islands; Lord Howe Island, Tasmania, Flinders, King and Kangaroo Islands, Australia; Madagascar, Seychelles, and Hawaiian Islands. However, his main area of research is the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues, where in particular he has studied the history of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Pigeon
The blue pigeons are a genus, ''Alectroenas'', of birds in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. They are native to islands in the western Indian Ocean. Taxonomy and evolution The genus ''Alectroenas'' was first described in 1840 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray with the Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissimus'') as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek ''alektruōn'', meaning "domestic cock", and ''oinas'', meaning "pigeon". The ''Alectroenas'' blue pigeons are closely interrelated and occur widely throughout islands in the western Indian Ocean. They are allopatric and can therefore be regarded as a superspecies. There are three extant species: the Madagascar blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon, and the Seychelles blue pigeon. The three Mascarene islands were home to one species each, which are all extinct; the Mauritius blue pigeon, the Rodrigues blue pigeon, and the Réunion blue pigeon. The blue pigeons perhaps colonised the Mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodrigues
Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. Rodrigues is of volcanic origin and is surrounded by coral reef, and some tiny uninhabited islands lie just off its coast. The island used to be the tenth District of Mauritius; it gained autonomous status on 10 December 2002, and it is governed by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly. The capital of the island is Port Mathurin. The islands of Rodrigues, Agaléga and Saint Brandon form part of the larger territory of the Republic of Mauritius. Its inhabitants are Mauritian citizens. , the island's population was about 41,669, according to Statistics Mauritius. Most of the inhabitants are of African descent. Its economy is based mainly on fishing, farming, handicraft and a developing tourism sector. Etymology and history The uninhabited island w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, where holotype and isotypes are often pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same gathering. A holotype is not necessarily "typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarsometatarsus
The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and metatarsal bones (foot). Despite this, the tarsometatarsus of birds is often referred to as just the shank, tarsus or metatarsus. Tarsometatarsal fusion occurred in several ways and extents throughout bird evolution. Specifically, in Neornithes (modern birds), although the bones are joined along their entire length, the fusion is most thorough at the distal (metatarsal) end. In the Enantiornithes, a group of Mesozoic avialans, the fusion was complete at the proximal (tarsal) end, but the distal metatarsi were still partially distinct. While these fused bones are best known from birds and their relatives, avians are neither the only group nor the first to possess tarsometatarsi. In a remarkable case of parallel evolution, they were also pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodrigues Night Heron
The Rodrigues night heron (''Nycticorax megacephalus'') is an extinct species of heron formerly occurring on the Mascarene island of Rodrigues (island), Rodrigues. Taxonomy It is known from subfossil bones and the 1708 description of François Leguat, Leguat as well as the 1726 report of Julien Tafforet. Description The skull of the Rodrigues night heron was 154 long,the upper mandible was 94 mm and the lower was 147. Behaviour and ecology Little is known about the behaviour of the Rodrigues night heron apart from the two contemporary descriptions. Leguat's 1708 description, wherein he stated the bird fed on endemic ''Phelsuma'' geckos (likely the Rodrigues day gecko), reads as follows: Milne-Edwards suggested in 1874 that the Rodrigues night heron had reduced power of flight, an opinion which Günther and Newton corroborated in 1879 by measuring the known wing-bones and founding all of them except the scapula to have been reduced in size and strength, while retaining the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodrigues Rail
The Rodrigues rail (''Erythromachus leguati''), also known as Leguat's gelinote or Leguat's rail, is an extinct species of the Rallidae, rail family that was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It is generally kept in its own genus, ''Erythromachus'', but has sometimes been assigned to the genus ''Aphanapteryx'' along with its close relative the red rail (''A. bonasia'') of Mauritius; their relationship with other rails is unclear. The Rodrigues rail was about long and weighed at least . It was described as having grey plumage, a red beak, red legs, and a naked red patch around the eye. The beak was long and curved downwards. It was flightless and fed on tortoise eggs. It was described as being attracted to red objects, which humans exploited while hunting it. The Rodrigues rail is believed to have become extinct in the mid-18th century because of predation by introduced cats and destruction of its habitat by tortoise hunters. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ISSN 1175-5326
''Zootaxa'' is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press (Auckland, New Zealand). The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week. From 2001 to 2020, more than 60,000 new species have been described in the journal accounting for around 25% of all new taxa indexed in The Zoological Record in the last few years. Print and online versions are available. Temporary suspension from JCR The journal exhibited high levels of self-citation and its journal impact factor of 2019 was suspended from ''Journal Citation Reports'' in 2020, a sanction which hit 34 journals in total. Biologist Ross Mounce noted that high levels of self-citation may be inevitable for a journal which publishes a large share of new species classification. Later that year this decision was reversed and it was admitted that levels of self-citation are appropriate considering the large proportion of papers f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fauna Of Rodrigues
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoologists and paleontologists use ''fauna'' to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess Shale fauna". Paleontologists sometimes refer to a sequence of faunal stages, which is a series of rocks all containing similar fossils. The study of animals of a particular region is called faunistics. Etymology ''Fauna'' comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns. All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and ''panis'' is the Greek equivalent of fauna. ''Fauna'' is also the word for a book that catalogues the animals in such a manner. The term was first used by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinct Birds Of Indian Ocean Islands
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote globally, and possibly many times more if microorganisms, like bacteria, are included. Notable extinct animal species include non-avian dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, dodos, mam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alectroenas
The blue pigeons are a genus, ''Alectroenas'', of birds in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. They are native to islands in the western Indian Ocean. Taxonomy and evolution The genus ''Alectroenas'' was first described in 1840 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray with the Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissimus'') as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek ''alektruōn'', meaning "domestic cock", and ''oinas'', meaning "pigeon". The ''Alectroenas'' blue pigeons are closely interrelated and occur widely throughout islands in the western Indian Ocean. They are allopatric and can therefore be regarded as a superspecies. There are three extant species: the Madagascar blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon, and the Seychelles blue pigeon. The three Mascarene islands were home to one species each, which are all extinct; the Mauritius blue pigeon, the Rodrigues blue pigeon, and the Réunion blue pigeon. The blue pigeons perhaps colonised the Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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