King Island emu

King Island emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae minor) is an extinct subspecies of emu that inhabited in King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Its is a closest relative to the Tasmanian emu.

## Taxonomy

There is much confusion about the taxonomic status and geographical origin of the small emus of King and Kangaroo Islands, as specimens of both populations were brought to France as part of the same French expedition to Australia in the early 1800s. The expedition log does not clearly indicate where and when the small emus were collected giving rise to a large number of scientific names subsequently coined for birds and the misconception of Kangaroo Island as the common origin of all emu specimens.Moreover, in 1914, L. Brasil argued that the expedition could not have found emus on King Island as the weather had been too bad to have left the camp.Adding to the confusion is the fact that the French at that time referred to both emus and cassowaries by the word *casoars*.​

Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot named *the species Dromaius ater* in 1817.In 1906, Walter Baldwin Spencer coined the name *Dromaius minor* based on some Pleistocene subfossil bones and eggshells found on King Island that same year, believing that they constituted the first physical evidence of emus on that island.However, William Vincent Legge used the name *Dromaius bassi* for these same remains, albeit at a later date.In 1907, Walter Rothschild stated in his book *Extinct Birds* that the remains described by Vieillot were actually common emu and therefore the name *D. ater* was invalid. Believing that the skins preserved in the National Museum of Natural History of France came from Kangaroo Island, he turned them into the type specimen of a new species which he named *Dromaius peroni* in honor of the French naturalist François Péron, who was the main source of information about this bird.​

Australian amateur ornithologist Gregory Macalister Mathews created more names in the 1910s including a new genus name, *Peronist*, as he believed that the birds found on King and Kangaroo Islands were generically distinct from the common emu.However, it was later claimed that the subfossil remains found on King and Kangaroo Islands were not visibly different from other emus and therefore belonged to the same genus.​In 1959, the French ornithologist Christian Jouanin and based on the records of the expedition and documents of the museums proposed that none of the skins collected in the Baudin expedition came from Kangaroo Island.In 1990, C. Jouanin and Jean-Christophe Balouet used environmental forensic techniques to prove that the skin preserved in Paris came from King Island and therefore at least one of the two birds that arrived alive in France were originally from that island.With this, it was assumed that the species native to Kangaroo Island was named on the basis of the remains from King Island so that none of the names that were previously given were valid leaving without a scientific name. Subsequently, and thanks to the findings of subfossil remains and subsequent studies carried out on both King and Kangaroo Island and in particular the studies carried out by Shane A. Parker, a different morphology and geographical origin were determined. Parker then named the Kangaroo Island bird D. *baudinianus* after Nicolas Baudin, leader of the French expedition, while the King Island bird remained D. *ater.*​

Although there were few morphological differences between the common emus and the two extinct islanders, besides their size, the three taxa were often considered to be distinct species. In 2011, a genetic study of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA on five emus bones from King Island concluded that they constituted a subspecies of the common emu and was renamed *Dromaius novaehollandiae ater*.In the 2013 edition *of the Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World the* trinomial name was changed to D. n. minor, proposed by W. B. Spencer in 1906, as *D. ater* was originally intended for emu from the continent*.*​

## Description

It was, with a height of one meter, the smallest of the known emus. It had very dark plumage.

## Behaviour and ecology

Péron's interview describes some aspects of the king island emu's behavior. He wrote that the bird was generally solitary, but met in flocks of ten to twenty at the time of procreation and then moved away in pairs. They ate fruits, grass and seaweed; foraged mainly during the morning and evening. They ran fast, but apparently they were slower than the emus of the continent because they were fatter. They did not swim well, but they only did so when necessary. There are reports that they liked shadows near lagoons and by the sea rather than open areas. They used a claw on each wings to scratch themselves. If unable to escape the seal hunters' dogs, they defended themselves through kicks, which could hurt the animals enough.

Captain Matthew Flinders found no emus when he visited King Island in 1802, but his naturalist, Robert Brown, examined excrement and noted that they had fed mainly *leptecophylla juniperina berries*.  An account by English ornithologist John Latham of van diemen's "casuar of the Land" may also refer to the King Island emu based on the small size described. In addition to making a physical description of the subspecies, he stated that the emu met in groups of 70 to 80 individuals in a given location while foraging, behavior that was exploited by hunters.  Hume and colleagues noted that most of the emu subfossils on King Island were found on the west coast (the driest) of the island, and although probably due to preservation bias, they suggested that the emu be restricted to coastal and more open areas of the interior, not occurring in the dense inland forests. An 1802 report by the English surveyor Charles Grimes also supported this hypothesis, stating that "there was a lot on the coast — but not in land." The island's tall and dense eucalyptus forests have been destroyed.

Péron stated that the nest was usually made near water and in the soil, under the shade of a bush. It was made of sticks and lined with dead leaves and moss; it had an oval shape and it wasn't very deep. He stated that seven to nine eggs were always laid on July 25 and 26, but the selective advantage of this synchronized reproduction is unknown. The female hatched the eggs, but the male apparently developed an incubation plate, which indicates that it also contributed to this task. The bird that was not incubating was also close by, and the chicks left the nest two to three days after hatching.  The eggs were predoted by snakes, rats and carnivorous marsupials of the genus *Dasyurus*.  Péron estimated the incubation period of five or six weeks, but since the continental emu incubates for 50 to 56 days, this period can be very short. He stated that an emu mother defended her cubs from crows using her beak, but it is now known that this behavior is strictly male.

## Relationship with humans

In December 1802,François Perrault, a French naturalist who was part of the Boudin expedition, visited the island and was the last person to describe his mother as King Island. The little knowledge we have today is from interviews Peru conducted with sailors who visited the island.

Two or three individuals were brought to France in 1804 and held captive atJardin des Plantes, the latter died in 1822. One of the last birds has been preserved to this day in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, and is the only surviving skin from the bird. Shortly after this bird was discovered, English sailors settled on the island because of the large groups ofelephant sealson the island. At the time of the death of the last captive bird, the species was already extinct from King Island, having been killed by hunting and, most likely, from unnatural fires made by sailors. During the interviews with sailors who lived on the island, several reasons for the extinction of the bird arose. Perrault describes how dogs were trained to hunt his mother, which was a regular dish; One of the sailors claimed to have killed no fewer than 300 individuals.

## Gallery

Reconstruction of Sea Elephant Bay circa 1802.png