You loved to collect nectar from flowering trees in the forest with your long curved bill. And you sang with a flute-like melody; a haunting sound which carried far through the subtropical forest. As was the custom with Kaua’i ‘ō‘ō birds, (pronounced co-why-oh-oh), you mated and paired for life.
But your partner disappeared in the early 1980s, so you kept calling for her – always unanswered- and then eventually you called for any other female Kaua’i ‘ō‘ō. Except no female Kaua’i ‘ō‘ō bird answered.
None ever came, because there were none left.
You were the last individual of your species: an endling, though you could not know that.
You were last heard voicing your lonely mating call in 1987 – and after that there was silence. All that remains is a recording of you from a scientist made in that final year.
You and your kind used to nest in cavities in old growth trees in thickly forested canyons. But your trees were cut down. You moved to higher elevations but there weren’t enough trees with cavities up there, and hurricanes tore down these higher trees.
You were left with no home.
Invasive species which you had no defence against, preyed on you and decimated your kin: rats, pigs, mongeese; and mosquitoes brought disease.
You were the last surviving member of the Mohoidae family, a family of Honeyeater birds which had originated over 15-20 million years previously during the Miocene. You had related kin who had evolved in isolation on different Hawaiian islands into 5 species of Honeyeater. With your demise in 1987, this marks the only extinction of an entire avian family in all the centuries since 1500 AD.
Your song is the song of extinction; your unique irreplaceable contribution to the Life world: never to be heard again
Your actual last calls recorded in 1987
(Endling: an individual living thing that is the last survivor of its species or subspecies and whose death consequently means the extinction of that species or subspecies)
