The Viti Levu scrubfowl (''Megapodius amissus''), also known as the Fiji scrubfowl or lost megapode, is an extinct megapode that was endemic to

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

. The

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''amissus'', from Latin "lost", refers to its extinction.

Subfossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

remains were collected from the Udit cave at Wainibuku on the island of Viti Levu in October 1998 by

Trevor Worthy Trevor Henry Worthy (born 3 January 1957) is an Australia-based paleozoologist from New Zealand, known for his research on moa and other extinct vertebrates. Biography Worthy grew up in Broadwood, Northland, and went to Whangarei Boys' High S ...

, G. Udy and S. Mataraba, and described by Worthy in 2000. The holotype is held by the Museum of New Zealand (reg. no: S.037468).

Description

The megapode was similar in size to, or slightly larger than, the living

orange-footed scrubfowl The orange-footed scrubfowl (''Megapodius reinwardt''), also known as orange-footed megapode or just scrubfowl is a small megapode of the family Megapodiidae. This species comprises five subspecies found on many islands in the Lesser Sunda Islan ...

, though it had reduced wings and more robust legs, suggesting that it was flightless or almost flightless. It is likely that it became extinct through overhunting following human settlement of the Fiji Islands.

References

amissus Endemic birds of Fiji Extinct birds of Oceania Birds described in 2000 Holocene extinctions Fossil taxa described in 2000 {{galliformes-stub