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Traversia lyalli Rothschild, 1894

Lyall's wren, Stephens Island wren, Stephens Island rockwren, Steven Island wren (archaic) (used by Marples, 1946:vii)

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

A complete synonymy taken from (Checklist Committee (OSNZ), 2022:202):

Traversia lyalli Rothschild, 1894: Bull. Brit. Ornith. Club 4: 10 – Stephens Island, Cook Strait.; Xenicus lyalli (Rothschild); Checklist Committee 1970, Annot. Checklist Birds N.Z.: 64.; Traversia lyalli Rothschild; Checklist Committee 1990, Checklist Birds N.Z.: 194.; Xenicus insularis Buller, 1895: Ibis 1 (7th series): 237, pl. 7 – Stephens Island, Cook Strait.; Traversia insularis (Buller); A. Hamilton 1909, Hand-list Birds New Zealand: 14.

 

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: 1894 (Buller, 1905); February 1895 (BirdLife International, 2016)

IUCN RedList status: Extinct

 

Distribution

Stephens Island, Cook Strait, New Zealand (prehistorically North & South islands as well)

 

Biology & Ecology

 

 

Hypodigm

NMNZ S.22852 (in part)

 

Media

 

Above: Lyall's Wren. Traversia lyalli. From the series: Extinct Birds of New Zealand., 2004, Masterton, by Paul Martinson. Purchased 2006. © Te Papa. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Te Papa (2006-0010-1/3)

 

References

Original scientific description:

Rothschild, Walter. (1894). ["description of a new genus and species of bird from New Zealand"]. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 4(22): 10-11.

 

Other references:

BirdLife International. (2012). Traversia lyalli. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 14 October 2012.

BirdLife International. 2016. Traversia lyalli. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22698593A93691279. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22698593A93691279.en. Downloaded on 27 June 2021.

Brooks, T. 2000. Extinct species. In: BirdLife International (ed.), Threatened Birds of the World, pp. 701-708. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona and Cambridge, U.K.

Buller, S. W. L. (1895). On a new Species of Xenicus from an Island off the Coast of New Zealand. Ibis 37: 236-237.

Buller, W. L. (1895). Stephen Island Wren. Ibis Ser. 7, no. 1: 236.

Buller, W. L. (1905). Supplement to a history of the birds of New Zealand. Publ. by the author, London.

Checklist Committee (OSNZ). (2010). Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica (4th ed.). Ornithological Society of New Zealand & Te Papa Press, Wellington. [p. 278]

Checklist Committee (OSNZ). (2022). Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand (5th edition). Ornithological Society of New Zealand Occasional Publication No. 1. Wellington: Ornithological Society of New Zealand. [p. 202]

Clements, J.F., Schulenberg, T.S., Iliff, M.J., Roberson, D., Fredericks, T.A., Sullivan, B.L., Wood, C.L., 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/. Cornell Univeresity Press.

Day, David. (1981). The Doomsday Book of Animals: A Natural History of Vanished Species. New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press.

del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A., Fishpool, L.D.C., Boesman, P. and Kirwan, G.M. 2016. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 2: Passerines. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

Donald, Paul F. et al. (2010). Facing Extinction: The world's rarest birds and the race to save them. London: T & A D Poyser. [Google Preview]

Fuller, Errol. (1988). Extinct Birds. New York: Facts on File Publications. 256 pp.

Galbreath, Ross and Brown, Derek. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeper's cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli). Notornis 51(4): 193-200.

Greenway, J.C. 1967. Extinct and vanishing birds of the world. Dover Publications, New York.

Holdaway, Richard N., Worthy, Trevor H. and Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2001). A working list of breeding bird species of the New Zealand region at first human contact. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 28: 119-187.

Knox, Alan G. and Walters, Michael P. (1994). Extinct and endangered birds in the collections of The Natural History Museum. British Ornithologists' Club Occasional Publications 1: 1-292. [p. 189]

Marples, B. K. (1946). List of the birds of New Zealand. Notornis 1(supp.): i-vii.

Medway, David G. (2004). The land bird fauna of Stephens Island, New Zealand in the early 1890s, and the cause of its demise. Notornis 51(4): 201-211.

Millener, P. R. (1981). The Quaternary avifauna of the North Island, New Zealand. Unpubl. PhD thesis, Department of Geology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

Millener, P. R. (1988). Contributions to New Zealand's Late Quaternary avifauna. 1: Pachyplichas, a new genus of wren (Aves: Acanthisittidae), with two new species. J. R. Soc. N.Z. 18: 383-406.

Millener, P. R. (1989). The only flightless passerine; the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli: Acanthisittidae). Notornis 36: 280-284.

Mitchell, K. J., Wood, J. R., Llamas, B., McLenachan, P. A., Kardailsky, O., Paul Scofield, R., Worthy, Trevor H. and Cooper, A. (2016). Ancient mitochondrial genomes clarify the evolutionary history of New Zealand’s enigmatic acanthisittid wrens. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 102: 295-304.

Robertson, H. A., Baird, K. A., Elliott, G. P., Hitchmough, R. A., McArthur, N. J., Makan, T. D., Miskelly, Colin M., O’Donnell, C. F. J., Sagar, P. M., Scofield, R. P., Taylor, G. A. and Michel, P. (2021). Conservation status of birds in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2021. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 36. Department of Conservation, Wellington. 43 pp.

Hugh Robertson, John Dowding, Graeme Elliott, Rod Hitchmough, Colin Miskelly, Colin O’Donnell, Ralph Powlesland, Paul Sagar, Paul Scofield, Graeme Taylor. (2013). Conservation status of New Zealand birds, 2012. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 4. 22 pp.

Rothschild, W. (1895). Note on the Stephens Island rockwren Traversia lyalli Rothsch. Novitates Zoologicae 2: 81.

Rothschild, Lionel Walter. (1907). Extinct birds: an attempt to write in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times, that is within the last six or seven hundred years: to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction. London: Hutchinson & Co. XXIX + 243 pp. [p. 23-25, pl. 5]

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)]

Scofield, R. Paul. (2021). “Mr Lyall’s boy”: the Lyall family and the Stephens Island Wren. Records of the Canterbury Museum 35: 169-175.

Tennyson, Alan J. D. and Martinson, Paul. (2006). Extinct Birds of New Zealand. Wellington: Te Papa Press.

Turbott, E.G. 1990. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand. Ornithological Society of New Zealand, Wellington.

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.

Tyrberg, T.; Milberg, P. 1991. Xenicus lyalli: utrotad av Polynesiernas råta och fyrvaktarens katt. Vår Fågelvärld 50: 15-18.

Williams, G. R. (1962). Extinction and the land and freshwater-inhabiting birds of New Zealand. Notornis 10(1): 15-32.

Worthy, Trevor H. (1993). Fossils of Honeycomb Hill. Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. 56 pp.

Worthy, Trevor H. (1998). Quaternary fossil faunas of Otago, South Island, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 28(3): 421-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014223.1998.9517573 [p. 465]

Worthy, Trevor H. (2001). A fossil vertebrate fauna accumulated by laughing owls (Sceloglaux albifacies) on the Gouland Downs, northwest Nelson, South Island. Notornis 48(4): 225-233.

Worthy, Trevor H. and Holdaway, Richard N. (1993). Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in the Punakaiki area, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 23(3): 147-254.

Worthy, T. H. and Holdaway, R. N. (1994a). Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in Takaka Valley and on Takaka Hill, northwest Nelson, South Island, New Zealand. Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand 24(3): 297-391.

Worthy, T. H.; Holdaway, R. N. 1994b. Scraps from an owl's table---predator activity as a significant taphonomic process newly recognised from New Zealand Quaternary deposits. Alcheringa 18: 229-245.

Worthy, Trevor H. and Holdaway, Richard N. (2000). Terrestrial fossil vertebrate faunas from inland Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand. Part 1. Records of the Canterbury Museum 14: 89-154.

Worthy, Trevor H. and Holdaway, Richard N. (2002). The Lost World of the Moa: Prehistoric Life of New Zealand. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. xxxiii + 718 pp.

Worthy, Trevor H., Miskelly, Colin M. and Ching, Bob A. (R.). (2002). Taxonomy of North and South Island snipe (Aves: Scolopacidae: Coenocorypha), with analysis of a remarkable collection of snipe bones from Greymouth, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 29(3): 231-244.

Worthy, Trevor H. and Zhao, J. X. (2006). A late Pleistocene predator-accumulated avifauna from Kids Cave, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand. Alcheringa Special Issue 1: 389-408.

 

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