The Guam flycatcher (''Myiagra freycineti''), or Guam broadbill, 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 lightweig ...

in the family

Monarchidae The monarchs (family Monarchidae) comprise a family of over 100 passerine birds which includes shrikebills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-larks. Monarchids are small insectivorous songbirds with long tails. They inhabit forest or woodland ...

formerly

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 else ...

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

Taxonomy and systematics

Some authorities consider the Guam flycatcher to have been a subspecies of the

Oceanic flycatcher The oceanic flycatcher (''Myiagra oceanica'') is a species of bird in the family Monarchidae. It is endemic to Micronesia and can be found on the Caroline Islands. The diversity of traits in the Oceanic flycatchers resulted from three waves of ...

. It has also been considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

with the

Pohnpei flycatcher The Pohnpei flycatcher (''Myiagra pluto''), known as Koikoi in Pohnpeian, is a species of bird in the family Monarchidae. It is endemic to Micronesia and can be found on the Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a ...

and

Palau flycatcher The Palau flycatcher (''Myiagra erythrops'') is a species of bird in the family Monarchidae. It is endemic to Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country an ...

. Alternate names for the Guam flycatcher include Guam Myiagra, Guam Myiagra flycatcher, Marianne Islands flycatcher, Micronesian broadbill, and Micronesian Myiagra.

Description

The Guam flycatcher was a small bird measuring 5 inches (13 cm) long with different coloration for the males and females. Males were glossy blue-black above while females were brownish-gray. Both had white below and buff coloration on the breast. It had a wide bill with long “whiskers” which helped it locate its food.

Status

The bird was secretive and occurred mainly in limestone and ravine forests. Although common on Guam as recently as the early 1970s, the flycatcher's population went into a rapid decline due to predation by the

brown tree snake The brown tree snake (''Boiga irregularis''), also known as the brown catsnake, is an arboreal rear-fanged colubrid snake native to eastern and northern coastal Australia, eastern Indonesia (Sulawesi to Papua), Papua New Guinea, and many islands ...

, ''Boiga irregularis'', which was accidentally introduced to the island in the 1940s. The last sighting of the flycatcher occurred in the Santa Rosa area in 1983. Given the small size of the island, the complete absence of recent sightings, and the universal presence of the brown tree snake in the bird's former habitat, the Guam flycatcher is considered extinct.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q847140

Guam flycatcher The Guam flycatcher (''Myiagra freycineti''), or Guam broadbill, is an extinct species of bird in the family Monarchidae formerly endemic to Guam. Taxonomy and systematics Some authorities consider the Guam flycatcher to have been a subspecies ...

Birds of Guam Extinct birds of Oceania Bird extinctions since 1500

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