Ninox albifacies rufifacies Buller, 1904:639
North Island laughing owl, North Island whekau, Laughing owl (North Island), Laughing owl, Whēkau (Māori)
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
A complete synonymy taken from (Checklist Committee (OSNZ), 2022:188):
Sceloglaux rufifacies Buller, 1904: Ibis 4 (8th series): 639 – Wairarapa District.; Sceloglaux albifacies rufifacies Buller; Mathews & Iredale 1913, Ibis 1 (10th series): 422.; Ninox albifacies rufifacies (Buller); Hume 2017, Extinct Birds (2nd edition): 233.
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: 1868/9; 1889 (BirdLife International, 2016); 1890 (Williams, 1962:18); 1930's (unconfirmed report) (BirdLife International, 2016)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct
There were unconfirmed reports of this subspecies right up until the 1930's (BirdLife International, 2012; Blackburn, 1982).
Distribution
North Island, New Zealand
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Both the holotype and sole other recent specimen cannot be located (Worthy, 1997; Tennyson & Bartle, 2008; Checklist Committee (OSNZ), 2022:188).
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Buller, W. L. (1904). On a new species of owl from New Zealand. Ibis 8(4): 639.
Other references:
BirdLife International. (2012). Sceloglaux albifacies. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 14 October 2012.
BirdLife International. 2016. Sceloglaux albifacies. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22689496A93232295. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22689496A93232295.en. Downloaded on 27 June 2021.
Blackburn, A. (1982). A 1927 record of the Laughing Owl. Notornis 29(1): 79.
Buller, W.L. (1872-1873). A history of the birds of New Zealand. London: John van Voorst. xxiii + 384 pp.
Buller, W.L. 1905–06. Supplement to the “Birds of New Zealand”. London: published by the author. Volume 1: xlix + 200 pp., 5 pls; Volume 2: iii + 178 pp., 7 pls.
Butchart, Stuart H. M., Lowe, Stephen, Martin, Rob W., Symes, Andy, Westrip, James R. S. and Wheatley, Hannah. (2018a). Which bird species have gone extinct? A novel quantitative classification approach. Biological Conservation 227: 9-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.08.014
Butchart, Stuart H. M., Wheatley, Hannah, Lowe, Stephen, Westrip, James R. S., Symes, Andy and Martin, Rob W. (2018b). Data for: Which bird species have gone extinct? A novel quantitative classification approach. Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/vvjhpmyxb4.1
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. 266]
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. 188]
Fuller, Errol. (1988). Extinct Birds. New York: Facts on File Publications. 256 pp.
Gill, B. J. (1996). Geographical variation in the bone length of Laughing Owls (Sceloglaux albifacies). Notornis 43(2): 85-90.
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.
Hudon, Daniel (writer) and Behin, Elahe (illustrator). (2014, April 6th). Brief Eulogies for Lost Species. Paragraphiti. Retrieved from http://www.paragraphiti.com/brief-eulogies-for-lost-species/ [accessed 21 April, 2018]
König, C., Weick, F. and Becking, J. H. (1999). Owls – a guide to the owls of the world. Yale University Press. New Haven and London. 462 pp. [Google Preview]
Marples, B. K. (1946). List of the birds of New Zealand. Notornis 1(supp.): i-vii.
Millener, P. R. (1983). Tyto alba (Aves: Strigidae): a deletion from the New Zealand subfossil record. Notornis 30(1): 15-21.
Miskelly, Colin M., Forsdick, Natalie J., Gill, Brian J., Palma, Ricardo L., Rawlence, Nicolas J. and Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2022). Amendments to the 2010 Checklist of the birds of New Zealand. Ornithological Society of New Zealand Occasional Publication No. 2. Wellington: Ornithological Society of New Zealand.
Oliver, W. R. B. (1955). New Zealand birds. Second edition. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. 661 pp.
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, Lionel Walter Rothschild. (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. 77-78]
Tennyson, Alan J. D. and Bartle, J. A. (2008). Catalogue of type specimens of birds in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Tuhinga 19: 185-207.
Tennyson, Alan J. D. and Martinson, Paul. (2006). Extinct Birds of New Zealand. Wellington: Te Papa Press.
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.
Valente, L., Etienne, R. S., and Garcia-R, J. C. (2019). Deep macroevolutionary impact of humans on New Zealand’s unique avifauna. Curr. Biol. 29, 2563–2569. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.058
Vargas, Pablo. (2023). Exploring ‘endangered living fossils’ (ELFs) among monotypic genera of plants and animals of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11: 1100503. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1100503
Weick, Friedhelm. (2006). Owls (Strigiformes): Annotated and Illustrated Checklist. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Williams, G. R. (1962). Extinction and the land and freshwater-inhabiting birds of New Zealand. Notornis 10(1): 15-32.
Wood, Jamie R. et al. (2016). Phylogenetic relationships and terrestrial adaptations of the extinct laughing owl, Sceloglaux albifacies (Aves: Strigidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/zoj.12483 [Abstract]
Worthy, Trevor H. (1997). A survey of historical Laughing Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies) specimens in museum collections. Notornis 44(4): 241-252.
Worthy, Trevor H. (2000). Two late-Glacial avifaunas from eastern North Island - Te Aute and Wheturau Quarry. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 30(1): 1-26.
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.
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