Xénique de Stephen
Although of a tiny size, the Xénique de Stephens or Xénique de Lyall ( Xenicus lyalli ) was a completely remarkable creature. It had seems it the surface of the natural distribution most reduced of all the known birds. It was perhaps only the Passereau unable to fly. It was probably the only creature discovered and then exterminated by a single animal, Tibbles, the Chat of a certain David Lyall (from which derives the scientific name from the animal).
During the year 1894, this predator brought back to its Master a series of tiny corpses. That occurred on the small island of Stephens, located in the Détroit of Cook, which separates the islands north and south from the New Zealand, island equipped with a Phare whose David Lyall was the guard. By chance, Lyall was a little ornithologist amateur, preserved the specimens and, realizing that these birds seemed rather unusual, it yielded them to a merchant. A little later the majority of them were transported in Europe where the majority were bought by the famous collector Walter Rothschild. Thus Traversia lyalli was known science. Time that its existence is diffused throughout the world by the ornithological newspaper Ibis , the species was already extinct. The cat had ceased bringing dead specimens and the birds were re-examined never again. It appears probable that the deforestation for the construction of the headlight, in 1894, also contributed significantly to the extinction of the bird.
The only observation by the man of Xénique de Stephens was carried out by David Lyall itself. He saw the birds twice, each time in the evening. Dislodged their holes in the rocks, they were incurred quickly in the darkness, like mice. Never they tried to fly away and this possible incapacity to fly is confirmed by the weak development of the wing S, which as well as possible enabled them to flutter slightly, and by the facility with which only one cat could exterminate the whole species.
Remainders of skeletons of what seems to have been a xenic inapt for the flight were found on the large New Zealand islands. Some authors think that proves that Xénique de Stephens was formerly widespread in New Zealand, and that the birds discovered into 1894 were simply a population relic, but it seems much more probable than the remainders of skeletons come from a similar but distinct species.
See too
Internal bonds
- List of the species of birds disappeared
External bonds
David Lyall