The Kona grosbeak (''Chloridops kona'') is an

extinct 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 ...

species of

Hawaiian honeycreeper Hawaiian honeycreepers are a group of small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. They are closely related to the rosefinches in the genus ''Carpodacus'', but many species have evolved features unlike those present in any other finch. Their great ...

. The Kona grosbeak was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to naio ('' Myoporum sandwicense'') forests on ʻaʻā

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

flows at elevations of near the

Kona District Kona is a ''moku'' or district on the Big Island of Hawaii in the State of Hawaii, known for its Kona coffee and the location of the Ironman World Championship Triathlon. In the current system of administration of Hawaii County, the ''moku'' o ...

on the island of Hawaii. The species was already very rare when it was first discovered, being found in only about , and was last collected in 1894. Reasons for its extinction are not very well known. The genus is known from fossils from

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...

and

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

. It was unknown to the Native Hawaiians, and thus a name for it does not exist in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language o ...

Description

The Kona grosbeak, at , was a medium-sized, chunky bird. Its plumage was a dull olive green, and did not display

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

. The bird had a large head and a giant, brownish-gray

beak The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food ...

Diet

The Kona grosbeak was a

frugivore A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance an ...

, with a large

adapted to break through the hard endocarp of dried naio ('' Myoporum sandwicense'')

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

s. It may have also taken green naio fruit and leaves, as well as softer bracts such as that of the ie (''

Freycinetia arborea ''Freycinetia arborea'', ''Ieie'', is a densely branched, brittle, woody climber in the family Pandanaceae, endemic to the Pacific Islands. ''Ieie'' is found in moist forest on the Hawaiian, Marquesas, Austral, Society, and Cook Islands. ...

'') of which it served as a pollinator. Young were most likely fed

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

Wilson's report

The ornithologist

Scott Barchard Wilson Scott Barchard Wilson (1865–1923) was a British people, British ornithologist and explorer. Wilson was the son of the chemist George Fergusson Wilson. In 1887, he was sent by his professor Alfred Newton to study and collect birds in Hawaii. On h ...

was one of the few people to observe Kona grosbeaks in the wild. An account of his sightings is featured in '' The Ibis'', which was published in 1893: The ''Chloridops kona'' (Kona grosbeak), though an interesting bird on account of its peculiar structure, is a singularly uninteresting one in its habits. It is a dull, sluggish, solitary bird and very silent-its whole existence may be summed up in the words “to eat.” Its food consists of the seeds of the fruit of the aaka ('' Myoporum sandwicense'') (bastard sandal-tree, and probably in other seasons of those of the sandalwood tree), and as these are very minute, its whole time seems to be taken up in cracking the extremely hard shells of this fruit, for which its extraordinarily powerful beak and heavy head have been developed. I think there must have been hundreds of the small white kernels in those that I examined. The incessant cracking of the fruits when one of these birds is feeding, the noise of which can be heard for a considerable distance, renders the bird much easier to see than it otherwise would be. It is mostly found on the roughest lava, but also wanders into the open spaces in the forest. I never heard it sing (once mistook the young '' Rhodacanthis'' - greater koa finch song for that of ''Chloridops''), but my boy informed me that he had heard it once, and its song was not like that of ''Rhodocanthis''. Only once did I see it display any real activity, when a male and female were in active pursuit of one another amongst the sandal-trees. Its beak is nearly always very dirty, with a brown substance adherent to it, which must be derived from the sandal-tree.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q911041 Chloridops Endemic birds of Hawaii Extinct birds of Hawaii Hawaiian honeycreepers Quaternary birds of Oceania Bird extinctions since 1500 Birds described in 1888 Articles containing video clips

Taxa named by Scott Barchard Wilson In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known ...

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot