Thambetochen xanion Olson & James, 1991
O'ahu Moa-nalo
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: 770 ± 70yBP (Harmon et al., 2026)
Distribution & Habitat
O'ahu, Hawaiian Islands, USA
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Olson, Storrs L. and James, Helen F. (1991). Descriptions of thirty-two new species of birds from the Hawaiian Islands: Part I. Non-Passeriformes. Ornithological Monographs, No. 45: 1-88.
Other references:
Athens, J. S., Tuggle, H. D., Ward, J. V. and Welch, D. J. (2002). Avifaunal extinctions, vegetation change, and Polynesian impacts in prehistoric Hawai’i. Archaeol Ocean 35: 57-78.
Dumot, Dennis and Fujihana, Casie. (2016). Feeding, Digestion, and Cellular Metabolism of Oʻahu’s Moa nalo, the Thambetochen xanion. Zool 430. 11 pp.
Faurby, Søren, Matthews, Tom J., Triantis, Kostas A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2026). Quantifying the unrecorded loss of avian phylogenetic diversity. Ecography 2026: e08267. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08267
Harmon, Kristen C., Price, Melissa R. and Winter, Kawika B. (2026). The “regime shift extinctions” hypothesis and mass
extinction of waterbirds in Hawaiʻi. Ecosphere 17: e70445. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70445
Hearty, P. J., James, Helen F. and Olson, Storrs L. (2005). The Geological Context of Middle Pleistocene Crater Lake Deposits and Fossil Birds at Ulupau Head, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands. In: Alcover, J. A. and Bover, P. (eds.). Proceedings of the International Symposium “Insular Vertebrate Evolution: the Palaeontological Approach”. Monografies de la Societat d’Història Natural de les Balears, 12: 113-128.
Hume, Julian Pender and Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. 544 pp.
James, Helen F. (1987). A late Pleistocene avifauna from the island of Oahu, Hawaiian Islands. Doc. Lab. Geol. Fac. Sci. de Lyon 99: 221-230.
James, H. F., T. Stafford, D. Steadman, S. Olson, P. Martin, A. Jull, and P. McCoy. 1987. “Radiocarbon Dates on Bones of Extinct Birds from Hawaii.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 84: 2350-2354.
Langenwalter, Paul E. II and James, Helen F. (2015). Extinct and Extirpated Birds and Other Vertebrates in the Faunal Assemblage of Halawa Cave, a Rockshelter in North Halawa Valley, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Hawaiian Archaeology 14: 65-78.
Matthews, Thomas J., Triantis, Kostas A., Wayman, Joseph P., Martin, Thomas E., Hume, Julian P., Cardoso, Pedro, Faurby, Søren, Mendenhall, Chase D., Dufour, Paul, Rigal, François, Cooke, Rob, Whittaker, Robert J., Pigot, Alex L., Thébaud, Christophe, Jørgensen, Maria Wagner, Benavides, Eva, Soares, Filipa C., Ulrich, Werner, Kubota, Yasuhiro, Sadler, Jon P., Tobias, Joseph A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2024). The global loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity from anthropogenic extinctions. Science 386(6717): 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7898 [Supplementary Materials; Dryad dataset; Zenodo codeset]
Matthews, Thomas J., Wayman, Joseph P., Cardoso, Pedro, Sayol, Ferran, Hume, Julian P., Ulrich, Werner, Tobias, Joseph A., Soares, Filipa C., Thébaud, Christophe, Martin, Thomas E. and Triantis, Kostas A. (2022). Threatened and extinct island endemic birds of the world: Distribution, threats and functional diversity. Journal of Biogeography 49(11): 1920-1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14474 [Appendix S1 (.docx); Appendix S2 (.pdf)]
Olson SL and James HF (1982) Prodromus of the fossil avifauna of the Hawaiian Islands. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 365, 1–59.
Olson SL and James HF (1984) The role of Polynesians in the extinction of the avifauna of the Hawaiian islands. In Martin PS and Klein RG, eds, Quaternary Extinctions: a Prehistoric Revolution, pp. 768–780. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M., Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]
Sorenson, Michael D. et al. (1999). Relationships of the extinct moa-nalos, flightless Hawaiian waterfowl, based on ancient DNA. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 266: 2187-2193.
Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Young, H. Glyn, Tonge, Simon J. and Hume, Julian Pender. (1996). Review of Holocene wildfowl extinctions. Wildfowl 47: 167-181.
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/7844/thambetochen-xanion-oahu-moa-nalo