Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A New Form of Corapipo from Cerro Marahuaca, Amazonas, Venezuela

1955; Oxford University Press; Volume: 72; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/4081452

1938-4254

Cultural and Mythological Studies

The bird was described as Pu2•nus newelli but is now considered Pu2•nus pu2•nus newelli by Murphy (Amer.Mus.Novit.1586: 11, 1952).The last of seven known preserved specimens in the world had been taken in the 1890's.Native Hawaiians had apparently collected adult shearwaters for food on Molokai in 1906 (Bryan, Bishop Mus., Oct. Papers, 4: 54, 1908) but found them absent in 1907.There seem to be no further records of the species, known to Hawaiians as the Ao, until Fisher (Condor, 53: 31-42, 1951) reported seeing three flying at sea between Kauai and Niihau in August of 1947.David Woodside and Joseph King report having seen several dozen shearwaters in Hawaiian waters between 1951 and 1954, that, judging from their descriptions, appear to have been Newell's Shearwaters.In spite of this evidence of the continued existence of the species, it is gratifying to be able to report a recently found specimen.At 4:00 A.M., May 22, 1954, an adult Ao flew into a room of a sugar refinery near Aiea, Oahu.It was given to the Honolulu Zoo where it lived for over a month, seemingly in good health, but died June 30.Its skin is now in the American Museum of Natural History and its nearly complete skeleton, in the Bishop Museum.Brief notes and measurements seem of value because the bird has probably never been observed in captivity or photographed, and is extremely rare in collections.The bird was retiring and gentle, never attempting to bite as do some shearwaters or petrels.It soon learned to take fish from its keeper or to come to its pool for fish and ate two to four dead smelt (5" to 6" long) every day, swallowing them headfirst.Henshaw (Auk, 17.' 246, 1900) in his original description of Pu2•nus newelli, did not have first-hand knowledge of a live specimen.He describes the color of the feet and tarsus, where not black, as light yellow, and the beak as black and light brown.It may be significant that in the recent living bird the light-colored parts of the legs and feet were grey or pinkish-grey and the beak uniformly dark slate-colored.The wingspread and length of the Ao have apparently never been recorded; they were 32 inches and 14 inches in the live bird.The bird weighed 11 ounces and was in good flesh.It was a female, the ovary being 3/8 inch long and the ovules about 1/32 inch, and the oviduct readily visible.The regular museum skin measurements were: exposed culmen, 31 mm.; tarsus, 45 mm.; wing (chord), 231 mm.; middle toe and claw, 51 min.; and tail, 82 min.Judging from the several records of the Newell's Shearwater in recent years, one may assume that the form is still breeding, at least in small numbers, somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands.Intensive search of the mountainous cliffs as on Kauai or Maui, may well reveal its nesting burrows.--Fv,•NKRIC}XA•DSO•, Bernice P.