The Laysan crake is one of around 1000 bird species known by exhibits, written accounts, illustrations, skeletons, eggs or subfossil remains to have existed but which have vanished in the past 700 years.
It joins the dodo, the great auk, the huia and species of woodpeckers, boobies, pigeons, parakeets, cormorants, owls, swifts, finches, crows, petrels and birds of almost every taxon in a remarkable new book that documents for the first time the world's known extinct birds.
"The sheer magnitude of bird extinctions that have taken place is shocking," says Julian Hume, a research fellow at the Natural History Museum in London and co-author, with Michael Walters, of Extinct Birds.
"Many more recently extinct species await description, and a number of critically endangered species will probably disappear in the next decade. A human-induced mass extinction is taking place."
Walters, former curator of the egg collection at the museum, adds: "In the last millennium the impact of humans on the natural world has accelerated out of control ... Before humans evolved on the planet, mass extinction events were caused by things like extraterrestrial impacts, vulcanism and changes of climate and sea level. Now we recognise a new agent of mass destruction - ourselves."
According to BirdLife International, the organisation that assesses bird populations worldwide, the natural rate of bird extinction is about one per century. But in the past 30 years, 21 bird species are known to have become extinct, and 189 are classified as "on the very edge of extinction".
Most of these could be lost forever without immediate action within 10 years, says Birdlife spokesman Martin Fowlie.
"Usually mass extinctions take place over millions of years," says Fowlie. "Nothing has ever happened like this. They are being lost at an irreplaceable rate. One in eight of all the world's 9920 bird species are 'threatened'; 381 are 'endangered' and a further 683 are 'vulnerable'."
Biodiversity is under massive threat everywhere, with amphibians, mammals and bees in the frontline as the world's remotest places are developed for mining, forestry and habitations or are severed by roads. But no vertebrate has suffered more than birds, which evolved over millions of years from dinosaurs.
Because they are relatively large, conspicuous and are mostly active by day, they have been long prized by humans for food, collections and their cultural connection.
Most threatened bird species are in the tropics because that is where there is most biodiversity, but losses in the past 200 years have been distributed across the Pacific, Latin America and Africa. Such is the rate of deforestation and intrusion into earth's last wild areas that huge numbers of species other than birds are being lost before they are recorded.
"Birds are symbols of life, movement, vitality and freedom," says Errol Fuller, author of several books on extinct birds. "The fact that they live so noticeably around us makes it doubly difficult to come to terms with the idea that a species should no longer exist."
"When a bird species goes, we are all diminished," says Will Turner, a conservation researcher.
"Organisms are all connected to each other. Lose one species and it can have an effect on many others.
"When the dodo went it meant that a tree could no longer disperse its seeds. Take one piece out and the entire system becomes less resistant. Gradual loss [of species] can result in decreased resilience and productivity."
Fowlie adds: "In fact, a lot of bird species have been saved. We know what to do, we understand what the problem is, we only need action and money. It's possible that £20 million [$38 million] would save them all."
Bye bye birdie
* 189 bird species are "on the edge of extinction"
* 1200 are "threatened"
* 381 are classed as "endangered"
* 683 are "vulnerable"
- Source: Birdlife International
- Observer
