page_title: Kangaroo Island emu
section_title: Relationship with humans
hierarchical_section_title: Kangaroo Island emu / Relationship with humans
caption_attribution_description: "Black Emus of Kangaroo Island". The large bird is thought to be based on a Kangaroo Island emu, and the small one on the King Island emu, but were thought to be a male and female of the same species at the time.[1] The original hand coloured copper engraving was engraved by F. Lambert after paintings and drawings by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur who was the offical artist of natural history on the Nicholas Baudin Voyage 1800-1804 for 'Péron, François (1775-1810). Voyage de découvertes aux terres Australes ..., sur les corvettes le Géographe, le Naturaliste, et al goëlette la Casuarina, pendant les années 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804. Paris: De L'Imprimerie impériale, 1807-16.
context_page_description: The Kangaroo Island emu or dwarf emu is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was restricted to Kangaroo Island, South Australia, which was known as Ile Decrés by the members of the Baudin expedition. It differed from the mainland emu mainly in its smaller size. The species became extinct by about 1827.
context_section_description: Several emu specimens belonging to the different subspecies were sent to France, both alive and dead, as part of the expedition. Some of these are in European museums today. Le Naturaliste brought one live specimen and one skin of the mainland emu to France in June 1803. Le Géographe collected emus from both King and Kangaroo Island, and at least two live King Island individuals, assumed to be a male and female by some sources, were taken to France in March 1804. This ship also brought skins of five juveniles collected from different islands. Two of these skins, of which the provenance is unknown, are presently kept in Paris and Turin; the rest are lost.
  Peron's 1807, three-volume account of the expedition, Voyage de découverte aux terres Australes, contains an illustration (plate 36) of "casoars" by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, who was the resident artist during Baudin's voyage. The caption states the birds shown are from "Ile Decrès", the French name for Kangaroo Island, but there is confusion over what is actually depicted. The two adult birds are labelled as a male and female of the same subspecies, surrounded by juveniles. The family-group shown is improbable, since breeding pairs of the mainland emu split up once the male begins incubating the eggs. Lesueur's preparatory sketches also indicate these may have been drawn after the captive birds in Jardin des Plantes, and not wild ones, which would have been harder to observe for extended periods. 
  The Australian museum curator, Stephanie Pfennigwerth, has instead proposed that the larger "male" was actually drawn after a captive Kangaroo Island emu, that the smaller, dark "female" is a captive King Island emu, that the scenario is fictitious, and the sexes of the birds indeterminable. They may instead only have been assumed to be male and female of the same subspecies due to their difference in size. A crooked claw on the "male" has also been interpreted as evidence that it had lived in captivity, and it may also indicate that the depicted specimen is identical to the Kangaroo Island emu skeleton in Paris, which has a deformed toe. The juvenile on the right may have been based on the Paris skin of an approximately five-month-old King Island emu specimen, which may, in turn, be the individual that died on board le Geographe during rough weather, and was presumably stuffed there by Lesueur himself. The chicks may instead simply have been based on those of mainland emus, as none are known to have been collected.
caption: Illustration by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, based on life-drawings made during Baudin's journey and specimens kept at Jardin des Plantes. The animals were thought to be a male and female of the same subspecies, but are possibly a Kangaroo Island emu and a King Island emu.[15]
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