King Island emu

King Island emu was endemic to King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. It was the smallest of all known emus and had darker plumage than the mainland emu. Hunting pressure and fires started by early settlers on King Island likely drove the wild population to extinction by 1805. The captive specimens in Paris both died in 1822 and are believed to have been the last of their kind.

About King Island emu in brief

The King Island emu was endemic to King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. It was the smallest of all known emus and had darker plumage than the mainland emu. Its chicks were striped like those on the mainland. Hunting pressure and fires started by early settlers on King Island likely drove the wild population to extinction by 1805. The captive specimens in Paris both died in 1822 and are believed to have been the last of their kind. There was long confusion regarding the taxonomic status and geographic origin of the small island emu taxa from King Island and Kangaroo Island. specimens of both populations were transported to France as part of the same French expedition to Australia in the early 1800s. The logbooks of the expedition failed to clearly state where and when the small emu individuals were collected, and this has resulted in a plethora of scientific names subsequently being coined for either bird, many on questionable grounds. In 1959, the French ornithologist Christian Jouanista proposed that none of the skins of the Kangaroo Islands were actually from the King Island. Later writers claimed that the subfossil remains found on King Islands were from the mainland, and therefore belonged to the same taxon. The King Island Emu is now extinct, but its closest relative may be the extinct Tasmanian emu, as they belonged to a single population until less than 14,000 years ago when Tasmania and King Island were still connected.

It is thought that the small size of the King Islands emu may be an example of insular dwarfism. The birds gathered in flocks to forage and during breeding time. They fed on berries, grass and seaweed. They ran swiftly and could defend themselves by kicking. The nest was shallow and consisted of dead leaves and moss. Seven to nine eggs were laid, which were incubated by both parents. The bird was black and brown and had naked blue skin on the neck, and its chicks were stripey. The behaviour of the birds probably did not differ much from that of the mainland Emu. The two live King Island specimens were kept in the Jardin des Plantes, and the remains of these and the other birds are scattered throughout various museums in Europe today. The French naturalist François Péron, who is the main source of information about the bird in life, conducted an interview with a sealer there in 1802. He made it the type of natural specimen of his new natural specimen Dromaius peroni, named after the Frenchnaturalist. In 1903, the Australian amateur ornithologists Archibald James Campbell in 1903, near a lagoon on the east coast, found some Pleistocene subf fossil bones and eggshells found onKing Island. In 1906, Walter Baldwin Spencer coined a name for these remains in 1906, Dromiaus bassi, but at a later date. In 1910, the British zoologist Walter Rothschild stated that Vieillot’s description actually referred to the mainlandEmu, and that the name D.ater was therefore invalid.

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