| Pied raven | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Pied raventype specimen, shot 24 September 1869.Zoologisk Museum,Copenhagen | |
Extinct (1902) | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Corvidae |
| Genus: | Corvus |
| Species: | C. corax |
| Subspecies: | C. c. varius |
| Population: | †Corvus corax variusmorphaleucophaeus |
Thepied raven (Corvus corax varius morphaleucophaeus) is an extinctcolour morph[1] of the North Atlanticsubspecies of thecommon raven that was only found on theFaroe Islands. The last confirmed record was in 1902.[2] The pied raven had large areas of white feathering, most frequently on the head, the wings and the belly, and its beak was light brown. Apart from that, it looked like the all-black North Atlantic ravens (C. c. varius morphatypicus),[3] which remains widespread in the Faroe Islands and are also found inIceland.[4]
The pied raven receivedbinomial names such asCorvus leucophaeus (byVieillot, 1817) andCorvus leucomelas (byWagler, 1827). It is currently referred to asCorvus corax varius morphaleucophaeus.
In modernFaroese, the bird is calledhvítravnur ("white raven"), older namegorpur bringu hvíti ("white-chested corbie"). Normal individuals of thesubspeciesvarius, which is found onIceland and the Faroe Islands, already show a tendency towards more extensive whitefeather bases compared with thenominate subspecies. But, only on the Faroes, amutation in themelaninmetabolism would become fixed in the population, causing some birds to have about half of their feathers entirely white. Whilealbinotic specimens sometimes occur in bird populations, the pied raven seems not to have been based on such occasional "sports", but on a constantly or at least regularly present part of the local raven population.[5]
The first record of the pied raven seems to be in the pre-1500kvæðiFuglakvæði eldra ("The elder ballad of birds") which mentions 40 local species, including thegreat auk. Later, the pied raven is mentioned in the reports ofLucas Debes (1673[6]) andJens Christian Svabo (1781/82[7]).Carl Julian von Graba in 1828[8] speaks of ten individuals he saw himself and states that these birds, while less numerous than the black morph, were quite common.
Díðrikur á Skarvanesi, the Faroe painter, painted theFuglar series, a number of portrayal of birds. On his18 fuglar ("18 birds"), the animal in the lower right corner can be identified as a pied raven. The painting is currently on display in theListaskálin museum of Faroe art inTórshavn.[9]
As exemplified by Skarvanesi's painting, which obviously was done from stuffed birds, the pied raven was an object of interest to collectors. During the nineteenth century, the pied birds were selectively shot because they could fetch high prices; thesýslumaður (sheriff) ofStreymoy, Hans Christopher Müller once paid twoDanish rigsdaler for a stuffed specimen fromNólsoy. Such sums, a healthy amount of money for the impoverished Faroe farmers, made shooting a pied raven a profitable enterprise. Additionally, ravens in general were hunted as pests. In the mid-eighteenth century, every Faroe male of hunting age was ordered by royal decree (seeNaebbetold) to shoot at least one raven or two other predatory birds per year or be fined fourskillings. The last confirmed pied raven was shot on November 2, 1902, onMykines. Subsequently, there were a few reported sightings of white ravens: in the autumn of 1916 onVelbastaður andKoltur, in the winter of 1947 on Nólsoy and again sighted the next year, and in the spring of 1965 onSandvík.[3] Because none of these sight records mentioned the unique black-and-white pattern and a small number of diluted, all-whitish ravens have been observed in recent decades in the Faroe Islands, none of these are officially recognised as pied ravens. Consequently, 1902 is generally considered as the year of extinction for the pied raven.[3]
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The pied raven, being a colour variation, likely only differed in one or very fewalleles (as opposed to numerous genes in a true subspecies) from the black birds. The "piebald" allele(s) was or were presumablyrecessive or (if more than one) only caused the novel coloration if they were all present. This is supported by the last sightings which occurred in the absence of a regular breeding population of piebald birds, and the observations of H. C. Müller.[5] Thus, it is not certain that the form is indeed extinct, if one can speak of "extinction" in any but apopulation genetical sense anyway. Theoretically, the allele(s) could still be present but hidden in black individuals of the subspecies and thus, a pied raven could once again be born one day. Although the raven remains fairly common in the Faroes, its population in the small archipelago is, however, only 200–300 breeding pairs.[4][10] Because ravens with a diluted, all-whitish plumage have been sighted in the Faroes, also in recent decades, the alleles for that aberrancy still exists in the archipelago, but this is unlikely to be the same genes involved in the pied pattern.Corvids with a diluted plumage occur with some regularity in many countries.[3]
Today, 16 museum specimens of the pied raven are known: six in theZoologisk Museum (Copenhagen, Denmark); four in theAmerican Museum of Natural History (New York, United States); two in theMuseum of Evolution (Uppsala, Sweden); one in theNaturalis Biodiversity Center (Leiden, the Netherlands); one inState Natural History Museum (Braunschweig, Germany); one in theState Museum of Zoology (Dresden, Germany); and one in theManchester Museum (Manchester, United Kingdom). On June 12, 1995, thePostverk Føroya issued thepostal stamp FR 276, which featured a pied raven. It was designed by the famous Faroese artist and scientific illustratorAstrid Andreasen.
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