Fauna of Rodrigues - Barau's Petrel, Domed Rodrigues Giant Tortoise, Lesser Yellow Bat, Newton's Parakeet, Rodrigues Blue Pigeon, Rodrigues (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: Barau's Petrel, Domed Rodrigues giant tortoise, Lesser Yellow Bat, Newton's Parakeet, Rodrigues Blue Pigeon, Rodrigues Bulbul, Rodrigues day gecko, Rodrigues Fody, Rodrigues Night Heron, Rodrigues Owl, Rodrigues Parrot, Rodrigues Pigeon, Rodrigues Rail, Rodrigues Solitaire, Rodrigues Starling, Saddle-backed Rodrigues giant tortoise. Excerpt: The Rodrigues Starling (Necropsar rodericanus), alternatively spelled Rodriguez Starling, is an extinct and quite enigmatic songbird species. It is the only valid species in genus Necropsar, and provisionally assigned to the starling family (Sturnidae). This bird used to inhabit Rodrigues in the Mascarenes and at least one of its offshore islets. The record of its erstwhile existence is limited to an old travel report and a few handfuls of subfossil bones. In 1726, the marooned Frenchman JulienTafforet described his encounters with the bird on an offshore islet in his report Relation d'ile Rodrigue, which documented his 9-month stay in 1725. In 1874, Reverend Henry Horrocks Slater, a naturalist of the British Transit of Venus expedition, found subfossil bones of a starling-like songbird on Rodrigues proper, as had magistrate George Jenner shortly before. These are generally assumed to belong to the bird Tafforet wrote about. Some additional bones were found in 1974. Together, they represent most of the skeleton, except for the spine, pelvis and the small bones, and are mainly in the Cambridge Museum. The IUCN regards the Rodrigues Starling as a valid species, because Tafforet's report and the bones provide compelling evidence that it existed. Restoration by John Gerrard Keulemans which was partially based on a specimen that turned out to be an albinistic Grey Trembler (right)The bones found by Slater's team were the basis of the first scientific discussion by Albert Gunther...