North Island Piopio (Turnagra tanagra)

Year Last Seen:

1902

Comments:

This species is known from New Zealand's North Island, but has been driven Extinct by habitat loss and predation. The last confirmed record dates from 1902, and there have been no reports at all since 1970.

Habitat:

Very little is known, although it is likely to have required large tracts of primary native forest.

Causes:

Presumably both habitat destruction and direct predation by people, cats and rats caused the species' extinction (Greenway 1967).

Distribution:

Turnagra tanagra was endemic to the North Island, New Zealand. Walter Buller described it as common in the 1870s, but there were few specimens ever collected (specimens are only known to exist in Chicago, Philadelphia (USA), Tring (U.K.) and Wellington (New Zealand)), the last being from 1902. Occasional unconfirmed sight records persisted until 1970 (Tennyson and Martinson 2006).

References:

IUCN Redbook Data