New Zealand merganser

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New Zealand merganser
Temporal range: Late Holocene
MA I156484 TePapa Mergus-australis.jpg
Stuffed specimen from 1902

Extinct  (c.1902) (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Anseriformes
Family: Anatidae
Genus: Mergus
Species:
†M. australis
Binomial name
†Mergus australis

The New Zealand merganser, Auckland merganser or Auckland Islands merganser (Mergus australis) was a typical merganser which is now extinct.

Description[]

This duck was similar in size to the red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator). The adult male had a dark reddish-brown head, crest and neck, with bluish black mantle and tail and slate grey wings. The female was slightly smaller with a shorter crest.

Illustration from 1909
Drawing of the head

History[]

This bird was first collected when a French expedition led by the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville on the ships L'Astrolabe and La Zelee visited the Auckland Islands in 1840. Its decline was caused by a combination of hunting and predation by introduced mammals. The bird was not flightless, but rather hard to flush; it preferred to hide between rocks when pursued. The last sighting was of a pair shot on January 9, 1902. It was not found in a 1909 search, and a thorough 1972/1973 exploration of possible habitat concluded that it was long extinct (Williams & Weller, 1974).

Subsequent fossil discoveries suggest that this merganser was previously resident in the South Island, and on Stewart Island/Rakiura in New Zealand. Fossils of a subspecies or closely related species have also been found on the Chatham Islands. There exists a short remark mentioning "a merganser" found on Campbell Island in McCormick (1842), but this may just as well refer to the semi-marine Campbell teal which is otherwise missing in his notes: he only mentions the Pacific black duck ("a New Zealand species of duck").

References[]

  1. ^ BirdLife International (2016). "Mergus australis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22680496A92864737. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22680496A92864737.en. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  • McCormick, Robert (1842): A sketch of the Antarctic regions, embracing a few passing remarks, geographical and ornithological. Tasmanian Journal of Natural Sciences 1(4): 241–247. PDF fulltext
  • Williams, G. R. & Weller, M. W.. (1974): Unsuccessful search for the Auckland Islands Merganser (Mergus australis). Notornis 21(3): 246–249. PDF fulltext
  • Southern Merganser. Mergus australis. by Paul Martinson. Artwork produced for the book Extinct Birds of New Zealand, by Alan Tennyson, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2006
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