Mysterious Starling
Encyclopedia
The Mysterious Starling or Mauke Starling (Aplonis mavornata) was a species
of starling
found on the island of Mauke
, Cook Islands
. It is now extinct. The binomen
is the result of Buller's
misreading of the name inornata on the specimen label. As he seems to have genuinely believed this spelling to be correct, the binomial, although it has no meaning, is valid.
2.74 cm, tail 6.4 cm, wing 10.5 cm, wingspan 32 cm. Wing and tarsus measurement are somewhat less than in the living bird due to shrinkage of the specimen. The other measurements are either from the freshly killed bird or are unlikely to have changed.
Dull dusky black overall, with lighter brown feather edges which are prominent on the body feathers and less conspicuous on the remiges and tail. Iris yellow. Feet dusky brownish; bill the same color or somewhat lighter. A fine painting of the species is found in Fuller (2000: 362).
The geographically closest relative is the Rarotonga Starling
, which is larger and has a greyish body plumage
with light grey feather margins. In overall appearance, A. mavornata is closest to the Polynesian Starling
's subspecies tenebrosus of Niuatoputapu
and Tafahi, Tonga
; alternatively, it looks much like a much (nearly one-third) smaller, yellow-eyed version of the Samoan Starling
.
Old Vellum Catalog 12.192) was shot "hopping about [on a] tree" (Jones, 1925) by Andrew Bloxam
, naturalist of HMS Blonde
, roughly between 2.30 and 3.30 PM on August 9, 1825. The island
was not visited again by ornithologists until 1973, by which time the bird was extinct, presumably due to predation by introduced rats. Bloxam noted that in 1825, only 2 years after the arrival of the first Europeans, they "saw quantities of rats with long tails, different in appearance from the common South Sea rat
and resembling in color and almost in size the Norway rat" (Jones, 1925). Thus, and considering the vulnerability of other Aplonis species to rat predation, it can be assumed that the species became extinct soon thereafter.
(1890) is the origin of much of this confusion, but it actually started with Buller's 1887 description, when he misread the name on the label. Sharpe corrected this to inornata, but this was both unjustified (as Buller apparently really believed to have read mavornata) and in any case preoccupied, as Salvadori
had already named another starling Calornis inornata in 1880.
Thus, although Buller's description - a few throwaway lines in an account of the Striated Starling
referring to the unique specimen - is barely sufficient and his name nonsensical, it is nonetheless valid according to ICZN
rules.
There exists a drawing by Georg Forster
, made on June 1, 1774, and some notes of a bird collected on Rai’atea (formerly known as Ulieta) between May 14 and June 1 (popularised in Martin Davies' 2005 novel The Conjurer's Bird as the "Mysterious Bird of Ulieta"). Sharpe and many subsequent authors claimed that the bird on the painting
was the same species as the specimen, despite numerous discrepancies between the specimen and Forster's description. Stresemann
(1949; 1950) debunked this theory thoroughly, but writers did not stop referring A. mavornata to Forster's bird, connecting it with the Society Islands
(e.g. Ziswiler, 1965) or with Cook's
second voyage (e.g. IUCN, 1965). Only in 1986, when Olson published the results of his research, which included analysis of Bloxam's original diary and notes and concluded that his "Sturnus Mautiensis" can be identified with Buller's A. mavornata, was the mystery of Specimen 12.192 resolved. Since Bloxam's notes were originally published in a much bowdlerized and misleading edition (Graham & Byron, 1827) where it is only mentioned that they "...saw [...] a starling..." without any details and especially no reference to a specimen, the true origin of the Mysterious Starling was long overlooked.
In an ironic twist, Forster's bird, which had long puzzled ornithologists and was sometimes called "the mysterious bird of Raiatea" and variously considered a thrush
or honeyeater
is almost certainly another now-extinct species of Aplonis - thus, one could say that there are indeed two, not one species of "mysterious starling" from Pacific islands.
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of starling
Starling
Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The name "Sturnidae" comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent...
found on the island of Mauke
Mauke
Mauke is a raised atoll island, the eastern most of the Cook Islands.-Geography:...
, Cook Islands
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
. It is now extinct. The binomen
Binomen
In zoological nomenclature, a binomen , is the two-part name of a species. The term was introduced in 1953, abolishing the previously used "binomial name" . A binomen consists of a generic name and a specific epithet...
is the result of Buller's
Walter Buller
Walter Lawry Buller KCMG was a New Zealand lawyer, naturalist and ornithologist.Buller was the author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand , with illustrations by John Gerrard Keulemans. In 1882 he produced the Manual of the Birds of New Zealand as a cheaper, popular alternative...
misreading of the name inornata on the specimen label. As he seems to have genuinely believed this spelling to be correct, the binomial, although it has no meaning, is valid.
Description
Overall length 7.5 inches (19.1 cm). Bill from gape 1 inches (2.5 cm), from anterior margin of nostril, 1.24 cm. TarsusTarsus (skeleton)
In tetrapods, the tarsus is a cluster of articulating bones in each foot situated between the lower end of tibia and fibula of the lower leg and the metatarsus. In the foot the tarsus articulates with the bones of the metatarsus, which in turn articulate with the bones of the individual toes...
2.74 cm, tail 6.4 cm, wing 10.5 cm, wingspan 32 cm. Wing and tarsus measurement are somewhat less than in the living bird due to shrinkage of the specimen. The other measurements are either from the freshly killed bird or are unlikely to have changed.
Dull dusky black overall, with lighter brown feather edges which are prominent on the body feathers and less conspicuous on the remiges and tail. Iris yellow. Feet dusky brownish; bill the same color or somewhat lighter. A fine painting of the species is found in Fuller (2000: 362).
The geographically closest relative is the Rarotonga Starling
Rarotonga Starling
The Rarotonga Starling is a species of starling in the Sturnidae family.It is endemic to the Cook Islands.Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montanes.It is threatened by habitat loss.-References:...
, which is larger and has a greyish body plumage
Plumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
with light grey feather margins. In overall appearance, A. mavornata is closest to the Polynesian Starling
Polynesian Starling
The Polynesian Starling is a species of starling of the family Sturnidae. It is found in American Samoa, Samoa, Fiji, Niue, Tonga, the Santa Cruz Islands, and Wallis and Futuna Islands. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and tropical moist forests...
's subspecies tenebrosus of Niuatoputapu
Niuatoputapu
For the 2009 tsunami, see the main article: 2009 Samoa tsunami.Niuatoputapu is an island in the island nation of Tonga, Pacific Ocean. Its name means sacred island. Older European names for the island are Traitors island or Keppel island.Niuatoputapu is located in the north of the country,...
and Tafahi, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
; alternatively, it looks much like a much (nearly one-third) smaller, yellow-eyed version of the Samoan Starling
Samoan Starling
The Samoan Starling is a large starling of the family Sturnidae. It is found in American Samoa and Samoa. The species has a dark brown, glossy appearance, with a long bill. Its natural habitat is tropical moist forest on volcanic islands, where it is common and more conspicuous than the...
.
Extinction
The only known specimen (BMNHNatural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
Old Vellum Catalog 12.192) was shot "hopping about [on a] tree" (Jones, 1925) by Andrew Bloxam
Andrew Bloxam
Andrew Bloxam was an English clergyman and naturalist; in his later life he had a particular interest in botany. He was the naturalist on board during its voyage around South America and the Pacific in 1824–26, where he collected mainly birds...
, naturalist of HMS Blonde
HMS Blonde (1819)
HMS Blonde was a 46-gun modified Apollo-class fifth-rate frigate of 1,103 tons burthen. She undertook an important voyage to the Pacific in 1824...
, roughly between 2.30 and 3.30 PM on August 9, 1825. The island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
was not visited again by ornithologists until 1973, by which time the bird was extinct, presumably due to predation by introduced rats. Bloxam noted that in 1825, only 2 years after the arrival of the first Europeans, they "saw quantities of rats with long tails, different in appearance from the common South Sea rat
Polynesian Rat
The Polynesian Rat, or Pacific Rat , known to the Māori as kiore, is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the Brown Rat and Black Rat. The Polynesian Rat originates in Southeast Asia but, like its cousins, has become well travelled – infiltrating Fiji and most Polynesian...
and resembling in color and almost in size the Norway rat" (Jones, 1925). Thus, and considering the vulnerability of other Aplonis species to rat predation, it can be assumed that the species became extinct soon thereafter.
The mystery and its resolution
There was much uncertainty surrounding the specimen, as it had no information on its place of origin or date of collection. SharpeRichard Bowdler Sharpe
Richard Bowdler Sharpe was an English zoologist.-Biography:Sharpe was born in London and studied at Brighton College, The King's School, Peterborough and Loughborough Grammar School. At the age of sixteen he went to work for Smith & Sons in London...
(1890) is the origin of much of this confusion, but it actually started with Buller's 1887 description, when he misread the name on the label. Sharpe corrected this to inornata, but this was both unjustified (as Buller apparently really believed to have read mavornata) and in any case preoccupied, as Salvadori
Tommaso Salvadori
Count Adelardo Tommaso Salvadori Paleotti was an Italian zoologist and ornithologist.Salvadori was born in Porto San Giorgio, son of Count Luigi Salvadori and Ethel. He took an early interest in birds and published a catalogue of the birds of Sardinia in 1862...
had already named another starling Calornis inornata in 1880.
Thus, although Buller's description - a few throwaway lines in an account of the Striated Starling
Striated Starling
The Striated Starling is a species of starling in the Sturnidae family.It is endemic to New Caledonia.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . Downloaded on 24 July 2007....
referring to the unique specimen - is barely sufficient and his name nonsensical, it is nonetheless valid according to ICZN
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals...
rules.
There exists a drawing by Georg Forster
Georg Forster
Johann Georg Adam Forster was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific...
, made on June 1, 1774, and some notes of a bird collected on Rai’atea (formerly known as Ulieta) between May 14 and June 1 (popularised in Martin Davies' 2005 novel The Conjurer's Bird as the "Mysterious Bird of Ulieta"). Sharpe and many subsequent authors claimed that the bird on the painting
Bay Thrush
The Bay "Thrush", also known as the Bay Starling or the Mysterious Bird of Ulieta, is an extinct bird species of uncertain taxonomic relationships that once lived on the island of Raiatea , the second largest of the Society Islands in French Polynesia.-History:The species is known only from a 1774...
was the same species as the specimen, despite numerous discrepancies between the specimen and Forster's description. Stresemann
Erwin Stresemann
Erwin Stresemann was a German naturalist and ornithologist.Stresemann was one of the outstanding ornithologists of the 20th century...
(1949; 1950) debunked this theory thoroughly, but writers did not stop referring A. mavornata to Forster's bird, connecting it with the Society Islands
Society Islands
The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...
(e.g. Ziswiler, 1965) or with Cook's
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
second voyage (e.g. IUCN, 1965). Only in 1986, when Olson published the results of his research, which included analysis of Bloxam's original diary and notes and concluded that his "Sturnus Mautiensis" can be identified with Buller's A. mavornata, was the mystery of Specimen 12.192 resolved. Since Bloxam's notes were originally published in a much bowdlerized and misleading edition (Graham & Byron, 1827) where it is only mentioned that they "...saw [...] a starling..." without any details and especially no reference to a specimen, the true origin of the Mysterious Starling was long overlooked.
In an ironic twist, Forster's bird, which had long puzzled ornithologists and was sometimes called "the mysterious bird of Raiatea" and variously considered a thrush
Thrush (bird)
The thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur worldwide.-Characteristics:Thrushes are plump, soft-plumaged, small to medium-sized birds, inhabiting wooded areas, and often feed on the ground or eat small fruit. The smallest thrush may be the Forest Rock-thrush, at and...
or honeyeater
Honeyeater
The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea...
is almost certainly another now-extinct species of Aplonis - thus, one could say that there are indeed two, not one species of "mysterious starling" from Pacific islands.