An extinct Austral snipe (Aves: Coenocorypha) from New Caledonia

Abstract A new and extinct species of Austral snipe (Aves: Scolopacidae: Coenocorypha) is described from late Holocene cave deposits in New Caledonia. The new species is larger than all congeners in the New Zealand archipelago, including its subantarctic islands, but is slightly smaller than C. miratropica from Viti Levu, Fiji. Better developed ligamental sulci and attachment processes on the humerus suggest that this new species was perhaps the strongest flier in the genus. Nevertheless, it went extinct within c. 1000 years of human arrival in New Caledonia, probably as a result of depredation by the rats that arrived with humans.

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