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An Endemic Bird Quiz

Bruce G. Marcot


The quiz question is:

What extant bird species are endemic to the continental United States (48 states) and not found outside these U.S. borders?
(Also, which were endemic but are now extinct?)
 

... And the answer is:
 

1.  Lesser Prairie Chicken
2.  Carolina Chickadee
3.  Yellow-billed Magpie
4.  Red-cockaded Woodpecker
5.  Boat-tailed Grackle
6.  Fish Crow
7.  Bachman's Sparrow
8.  Seaside Sparrow
9.  Brown-headed Nuthatch
10. California Condor (now reintroduced into the wild)

Was endemic, now extinct:  Carolina parakeet.(1914 in captivity)

(Quiz question originally suggested by David Wilcove, pers. comm.; thanks, Dave.)
 


Recently Extinct North American Bird Species

Also, the following North American bird species have become recently extinct:

Labrador duck (c. 1878)
great auk (6/3/1844)
passenger pigeon (1914 in captivity)

(These three species were endemic to North America although not necessarily to the 48 continental United States.)


Recently Extinct North American Bird Subspecies

The following North American bird subspecies have become recently extinct:

heath hen (greater prairie chicken; 1932)
San Clemente bewick's wren (c. 1941)
Texas Henslow's sparrow (1980's)
dusky seaside sparrow (1987)
Santa Barbara song sparrow (c. 1967)

Probably all of these subspecies were likely endemic to the continental U.S.


Extinct in Hawaii

Hawaii:  23 full species went extinct between 1800 and 1976.  (From:  Erlich, P., D. Dobkin, and D. Wheye.  1992.  Birds in jeopardy.  Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford CA.  259 pp.)
 

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