''Xestospiza conica'' is an extinct species of
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
with a cone-shaped bill that was described on the basis of
fossil
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 ...
s. It was possibly an
insectivore
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...
, populating the
Hawaiian Island
The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
of
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 ...
.
[
]
See also
*Xestospiza fastigialis
''Xestospiza fastigialis'' is an extinct species of bird with a ridge-shape bill that was described on the basis of fossils. It was possibly an insectivore, populating the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu, Molokai and Maui
The island of Maui (; Ha ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
ornitaxa.com entry
Hawaiian honeycreepers
Late Quaternary prehistoric birds
Extinct birds of Hawaii
Prehistoric birds of Oceania
Fossils of the United States
Holocene extinctions
Fossil taxa described in 1991
Taxa named by Helen F. James
{{Paleo-bird-stub