The Oahu akialoa (''Akialoa ellisiana'') is an extinct species of

Hawaiian honeycreeper Hawaiian honeycreepers are a group of small birds endemic to Hawaii. They are members of the finch family Fringillidae, closely related to the rosefinches (''Carpodacus''), but many species have evolved features unlike those present in any othe ...

in the subfamily

Carduelinae The cardueline finches are a subfamily, Carduelinae, one of three subfamilies of the finch family Fringillidae, the others being the Fringillinae and the Euphoniinae. The Hawaiian honeycreepers are now included in this subfamily. Except for the ...

of the family

Fringillidae The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches generally have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where the ...

. It was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the island of

Oʻahu Oahu (, , sometimes written Oahu) is the third-largest and most populated island of the Hawaiian Islands and of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu's southeast coast. The island of Oahu and the uninhabited Northwe ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

Description

The bird was a long-billed insectivorous bird that was found in the high elevation forest. It was a dull colored species, dull green on the belly, bright green on rump and tail, dark olive-gray back and speckled yellow and green on the head. It was mainly an insectivore, using its bill to probe through the bark in search of arthropods, also using its long bill to probe flowers for nectar.

Status

Since the population was already taking a toll due to the large amount of deforestation, it was susceptible to the avian influenza, more commonly known as the bird flu. This was brought in by mosquitoes who were carrying the virus and were able to spread it within the community. Because of the virus, the population fell to around 4–6 percent of its normal population (Pratt). Scientists were sure that this bird was still common in the 1860s, according to evidence found by Perkins. Afterward, few reports came in, though two were presumed to be seen in 1933 and one in 1940.

References

2: H. D. and T. Pratt. “The interplay of species concepts, taxonomy, and conservation: lessons from the Hawaiian avifauna.” Studies in avian biology 22 (2001): 68–80.

External links

3D view
of specimens RMNH 110.021, RMNH 110.022 and RMNH 110.023 at

Naturalis Naturalis Biodiversity Center () is a national museum of natural history and a research center on biodiversity in Leiden, Netherlands. It was named the European Museum of the Year 2021. Although its current name and organization are relatively ...

, Leiden (requires

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

browser plugin)

Oahu Oahu (, , sometimes written Oahu) is the third-largest and most populated island of the Hawaiian Islands and of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu's southeast coast. The island of Oahu and the uninhabited Northwe ...

Oahu akialoa Extinct birds of Hawaii Bird extinctions since 1500 Oahu akialoa Species made extinct by human activities Taxa named by George Robert Gray Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Fringillidae-stub