S p e c i e s o f t h e M o n t h
EXTINCT ?
Last collected in 1837.
Oahu Nukupu'u
Hemignathus lucidus lucidus
This subspecies was similar to the other subspecies of Nukupu'u found on Hawaii,Kauai, and Maui. The Oahu Nukupu'u had a thick head and short tail.The males had a bright yellow head with black lores.Females and immature birds had less yellow and shorter bills.The long down curved upper mandible was twice the length of the lower.
The Oahu Nukupu'u was a bark picker and tapped the bark probing for insects.The species was said to only rarely feed on nectar. Its primary haunts were the wet Ohia lehua forests and the Koa forests at lower elevations.The song was described as being similar to the Akiapolaau and the House Finch. The call was a loud kee-wit.
There are few specimens in collections. A German collector, Deppe shot several specimens about 1837 from Nuuanu Valley where it fed on honey from the flowers of the plantain. Perkins, the famous English collector, found evidence that it abounded in the Oahu forests in some numbers in 1860. None of the bird collectors in the 1890's found any trace of the Oahu Nukupu'u.
There is very little information available about this species and only a few specimens in the world's museums .Like all of the other extinct native forest birds of Oahu ,as well as the few species that remain, the Nukupu'u populations were decimated by loss of habitat, introduction of alien bird species that competed with them for limited resources, the introduction of rats, cats, and mongoose which preyed on them, the arrival of mosquitos in 1827 that eventually gave the native birds Malaria, the arrival of the pox virus in Hawaii that spread to the birds and the collectors, who in some cases, shot the last of a species ever seen on Oahu. Many of the unique and beautiful native forest bird species of Oahu have already fallen into the abyss of extinction and the few remaining species continue their flight in the same direction. It is very important and urgent that more funds are made available to help the endangered native forest birds of Oahu survive.
Please do what you can to save the native Hawaiian forest bird species that remain.
