Lord_Howe_gerygone
Lord Howe gerygone
Extinct species of bird
The Lord Howe gerygone or Lord Howe gerygone flyeater (Gerygone insularis) was a small bird in the family Acanthizidae, brown and greyish in color. Its head was brown apart from a pale grey eye-ring and a grey throat and chin, many parts of the animal varied to the colour of yellow, this being apparent in its bright yellow belly. It made its home in the canopies of [2] the island's forest until the early 20th century. The bird has had a variety of monikers: locally, it was known as the "rain-bird" due to its activity after the rains, or the "pop-goes-the-weasel",[3] due to the similarity of its song to the well-known tune.[4] The bird was endemic to Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea (part of New South Wales, Australia). There have been no records of the species since 1928, and it is considered to be extinct. Its extinction is almost certainly due to predation by black rats which were accidentally introduced to the island in 1918 following the shipwreck of the SS Makambo there.[5]