North Island Takahē (Porphyrio mantelli)
Posted on 31 December, 1894 in Extinct
Year Last Seen:
1894
Comments:
This species was endemic to New Zealand's North Island, but has been driven Extinct by human-induced habitat changes, hunting and predation by introduced mammals. There has been only one historical record of the species, in 1894.
Habitat:
It inhabited high altitude alpine grasslands.
Causes:
The decline of the species has generally been attributed to the increasing incursion of forest into the alpine grasslands through the Holocene (Mills et al. 1984), although hunting by the Maori probably also played a significant role (Beauchamp and Worthy 1988). Predation by introduced mammals also likely contributed to declines (Hume 2017).
Distribution:
Porphyrio mantelli was a flightless endemic to North Island, New Zealand, from where it is known from subfossils from a number of archeological sites (Williams 1960) and from one possible late 19th century record (Phillipps 1959).