Rodrigues starling

Rodrigues starling was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues. The bird was only reported by French sailor Julien Tafforet, who was marooned on the island from 1725 to 1726. It was described as having a white body, partially black wings and tail, and a yellow bill and legs. Predation by rats introduced to the area was probably responsible for its extinction.

About Rodrigues starling in brief

Rodrigues starling was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues. The bird was only reported by French sailor Julien Tafforet, who was marooned on the island from 1725 to 1726. It was described as having a white body, partially black wings and tail, and a yellow bill and legs. Its diet included eggs and dead tortoises, which it processed with its strong bill. Predation by rats introduced to the area was probably responsible for the bird’s extinction some time in the 18th century. It first became extinct on mainland Rodrigues, then on Île Gombrani, its last refuge. Subfossil bones of a starling-like bird were first discovered on Rodrigues by the police magistrate George Jenner in 1866 and 1871, and by the British naturalist Henry H. Slater in 1874. In 1879, the bones became the basis of a scientific description of the bird by ornithologists Albert Günther and Edward Newton. They named the bird Necropsar rodericanus; Nekros and psar are Greek for ‘dead’ and’starling’, while roderica refers to the island of Rodrigues. In 1967, the American ornithologist James Greenway suggested that the Rodrigue starling should belong in the same genus as the hoopoe starling, Fregilupus. In 2014, the British palontologist Julian P. Hume described a new species, Mauritius starling based on subfossils found in 1974, based on the Mauritius sub-fossiles.

The species is likely to be the same as the bird mentioned in Tafforet’s account, thereby creating a junior synonym for the Rodrigues starling in 1900, George Ernest Shelley used the spelling Necropsa in his book, Necrospa in 1900. The name was originally proposed by Slater in an 1874 manuscript he sent to Günter and Newton. BirdLife International credits Slater rather than Güther and Newton for the name. The Rodrigues bird was a distinct genus of starling. The stouter stouter bill is mainly what warrants separation from Fregillupus, mainly because of what they termed “present ornithological practice” The bird is believed to be of Southeast Asian origin, and its closest relatives are the Mauritian starling and hoopoestarling from nearby islands; all three are extinct and appear to be from Southeast Asian. It is thought to have lived on the islet of Île Réunion from 1691 to 1693 and had a white and black body and partially black tail. It had a stout beak and was 25–30 centimetres (10-12 inches) long, and had an orange-coloured bill. No people who later traveled to Rodrigues mentioned the bird, and no one has written about its behaviour.

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