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The Avifauna of Reunion Island (Mascarene Islands) at
the Time of the Arrival of the First Europeans
Cecile Mourer-Chauvire, Roger Bour, Sonia Ribes,
and Francois Moutou
ABSTRACT
The excavations of five fossil bird localities on Reunion Island
have yielded the remains of (1) five species still present on
Reunion, which are mainly marine; (2) one extant species no
longer on Reunion, the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber
Linnaeus); and (3) 11 extinct species, namely, a night heron (Nycticorax
duboisi (Rothschild)), an ibis {Threskiornis solitarius
(Selys-Longchamps)), a sheldgoose (Alopochen kervazoi
(Cowles)), a teal {Anas theodori Newton and Gadow), a falcon
(Falco duboisi Cowles), a rail (Dryolimnas augusti, new species),
a coot {Fulica newtonii Milne-Edwards), a pigeon (Nesoenas
duboisi Rothschild), a parrot {Mascarinus mascarinus Linnaeus),
an owl {Mascarenotus grucheti Mourer-Chauvire et al.), and a
starling {Fregilupus varius (Boddaert)). Representatives of extinct
endemic Mascarene taxa, such as the Raphidae, Aphanapteryx,
Erythromachus, and large parrots of the genera Lophopsittacus
and Necropsittacus, are so far unknown from Reunion. Except for
Fulica newtonii, which probably colonized Reunion from Mauritius,
and Dryolimnas augusti, all the other forms appear to have
had normal or nearly normal flying ability. It is possible that
Reunion was colonized by the ancestors of the same forms that
colonized Mauritius and Rodrigues, but these forms may have
been exterminated during the very explosive events of the last
phase of volcanic activity of Piton des Neiges, which took place
between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. Reunion would then have
been colonized again by forms that perhaps have not had enough
time to lose their ability to fly. After the arrival of the first Europeans,
all the larger endemic land birds became extinct, with the
exception of Circus maillardi Verreaux. Although most of them
were not morphologically flightless, and although the topography
Cecile Mourer-Chauvire, Centre de Paleontologie Stratigraphique et
Paleoecologie de I'Universite Claude Bernard-Lyon I, ERS 2042 du
CNRS, 27-43 boulevard du II Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne
Cedex, France. Roger Bour, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle,
Laboratoire des Reptiles et des Amphibiens, 25 rue Cuvier, 75005
Paris, France. Sonia Ribes, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 1 rue
Poivre, 97400 Saint-Denis, La Reunion, France. Franqois Moutou,
Minist'ere de I'Agriculture, CNEVA, Laboratoire Central de Recherches
Veterinaires, 22 rue Pierre Curie, BP n° 67, 94703 Maisons-Alfort
Cedex, France.
of the island was very different, these birds became extinct on
Reunion as rapidly as on the other Mascarene islands.
Introduction
The Mascarene Islands were "discovered" by Portuguese
navigators as early as 1500 (North-Coombes, 1979). They were
shown on more ancient maps of Arabian navigators but were
uninhabited prior to the sixteenth century. Thus, Europeans
were the first settlers to observe the very unusual fauna of these
islands, one that was almost entirely exterminated within just
two centuries.
Numerous historical accounts of Reunion have been gathered
into two publications by Albert Lougnon (1970, 1992),
with the oldest account being that of Samuel Castleton, who
landed on the island in 1613. The parts concerning the birds are
given in extenso in the books of Barre and Barau (1982) and
Barre et al. (1996). Particular points of these accounts have
been discussed by Cheke (1987). The most complete and detailed
report is that written by Dubois (1674), also known as
Sieur D.B., who spent 16 months on the island in 1671 and
1672 (English translation by Oliver, 1897). These accounts are
invaluable because they make it possible to follow the demise
of the endemic fauna of Reunion from the beginning of the seventeenth
century to the disappearance of the two most recently
extinct species, Mascarinus mascarinus Linnaeus, in 1834, and
Fregilupus varius (Boddaert), between 1838 and 1858.
Fossil bird remains were found very early on Rodrigues (in
1786) and on Mauritius (in 1865), making it possible to have
good knowledge of their vanished faunas. Until recently, however,
the bird fauna of Reunion was known only from the accounts
of early explorers. The first fossil remains were unearthed
in 1974 by B. Kervazo during archaeological
excavations in the Grotte des Premiers Francais. Subsequently,
four other fossil sites containing bird remains also were discovered.
The fossil birds of the present study came from these five