Lyall's Wren (Traversia lyalli)
Posted on 31 December, 1894 in Extinct
Year Last Seen:
1894
Comments:
This species was known from Stephens Island, New Zealand, but likely became Extinct in 1895. Predation by feral cats is thought to have driven its decline.
Habitat:
The species was flightless and restricted to the rocky ground (Millener 1989).
Causes:
Construction of a lighthouse on Stephens Island in 1894 led to the clearance of most of the island's forest, with predation by feral cats driving the species to extinction (Tyrberg and Milberg 1991, Hume 2017).
Distribution:
Traversia lyalli is only known from recent times from Stephens Island, New Zealand (Greenway 1967), although it is common in fossil deposits from both of the main islands (Worthy and Holdaway 1994). It was last recorded in 1894, when several were caught by the lighthouse keeper's cat (Hume 2017). It was extinct by November 1895, but it had survived into that year, with Henry Travers finding a cat-caught specimen in February (Tennyson and Martinson 2006).