Paroreomyza flammea, commonly known as the Kākāwahie or Molokai Creeper, was a species of finch

Finch

The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily – monotypic at genus level – is found...

 in the Hawaiian honeycreeper

Hawaiian honeycreeper

Hawaiian honeycreepers are small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. Some authorities still categorize this group as a family Drepanididae, but in recent years, most authorities consider them a subfamily, Drepanidinae, of Fringillidae, the finch family...

 subfamily, Drepanidinae. It is extinct, but formerly occurred on the Hawaiian island

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

 of Molokai

Molokai

Molokai or Molokai is an island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is 38 by 10 miles in size with a land area of , making it the fifth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands and the 27th largest island in the United States. It lies east of Oahu across the 25-mile wide Kaiwi Channel and north of...

 in Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. It was 5.5 in (14 cm) long with clawed toes. This bird had the appearance of a ball of flame, especially males, which were scarlet red all around. The female had more of a brownish tinge to its belly. Its call was a chip like someone was cutting up wood in the distance. They were discovered in the late 19th century when Scott Barchard Wilson

Scott Barchard Wilson

Scott Barchard Wilson was a British ornithologist and explorer.In 1887, Wilson was sent by his professor Alfred Newton to study and collect birds in Hawaii. On his return he wrote Aves Hawaiienses with Arthur Humble Evans, illustrated by Frederick William Frohawk.-References:* Fuller, Errol :...

, a British ornithologist

Ornithology

Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...

 was lost in the fog. Wilson had shot down a female and two bright males. He collected several specimens and skins of other species of Molokai birds and then went back to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. They were fast flitting birds but nevertheless, they were still endangered. It is depicted in several paintings from the early 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

Distribution

The Kākāwahie lived in the Akoke Forests. Its stronghold in the Akoke Forests was the Kamokau Plateau, where it would always be seen before disappearing in 1963.

Habits

Apparently similar to the Maui Nui Alauahio, it used its blunt and short beak

Beak

The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...

 to peck out insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s from old naio (Myoporum sandwicense

Myoporum sandwicense

Myoporum sandwicense is a species of flowering tree in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae. Common names include Naio, bastard sandalwood or false sandalwood. It is native to Hawaii and Mangaia in the Cook Islands.-Description:...

) trees. It mainly fed on the larvae

Larvae

In Roman mythology, lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae as disturbing or frightening...

 of beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s and lepidoptera

Caterpillar

Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

; however in rare cases, it sipped nectar from flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s, which included the naio. The exterior of its nest

Nest

A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building...

 was reportedly composed of moss

Moss

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...

. The binomial name of this species, Paroreomyza flammea, refers to its appearance being to similar to that of a ball of fire as it flit from tree to tree in search of invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

s.

Extinction

Causes of extinction were probably similar to those of other Hawaiian forest birds. Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...

, avian disease spread by introduced mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...

es, as well as introduced predators were all likely major factors in its decline. Diseases spread by mosquitoes included avian malaria

Avian malaria

Avian malaria is a parasitic disease of birds.-Etiology:Avian malaria is most notably caused by Plasmodium relictum, a protist that infects birds in tropical regions...

 and fowlpox

Fowlpox

Fowlpox is a worldwide disease of poultry caused by viruses of the family Poxviridae and the genus Avipoxvirus. The viruses causing fowlpox are distinct from one another but antigenically similar, possible hosts including chickens, turkeys, quail, canaries, pigeons, and many other species of...

. These diseases caused the Kākāwahie to grow ill and create lumps, which eventually caused paralysis and then death by starvation. Native Hawaiians

Native Hawaiians

Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...

 trapped the birds for their red feather

Feather

Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...

s, which were then used

Featherwork

Featherwork is the working of feathers into a cultural artifact. This was especially elaborate among the peoples of Oceania and the Americas, such as the Incas and Aztecs....

 in the capes

Feather cloak

Featherwork cloaks have been used by several cultures.-Hawaii:Elaborate feather cloaks called [[ʻahuʻula]] were created by early Hawaiians for the alii .Feathers were also used in women's skirts called pāū....

 and leis

Lei (Hawaii)

Lei is a Hawaiian word for a garland or wreath. More loosely defined, a lei is any series of objects strung together with the intent to be worn. The most popular concept of a lei in Hawaiian culture is a wreath of flowers draped around the neck presented upon arriving or leaving as a symbol of...

 of alii

Ali'i

Alii is a word in the Polynesian language denoting chiefly status in ancient Hawaii and the Samoa Islands. A similar word with the same concept is found in other Polynesian societies. In the Cook Islands, an ariki is a high chief and the House of Ariki is a parliamentary house...

 (nobles and royalty). It was last sighted in montane

Cloud forest

A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and...

 wet forest at Ōhialele Plateau in 1963. However there were reports of this bird holding on until the 1970s, but after that it was definitely extinct.

External links

• 3D view of specimens RMNH 110.003 and RMNH 110.004 at Naturalis
  Naturalis
  Naturalis is the national natural history museum of the Netherlands, based in Leiden. It originated from the merger of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie and the Rijksmuseum van Geologie en Mineralogie in 1984. In 1986 it was decided that the museum had to become a public museum and a new...
  
  , Leiden (requires QuickTime
  QuickTime
  QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
  
   browser plugin).
• "Kākāwahie or Moloka‘i Creeper" - Hawaii's Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (.pdf)