Jamaican petrel

Jamaican petrel
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Illustration by Joseph Smit, 1866
Conservation status
Critically endangered, possibly extinct (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Procellariiformes
Family:	Procellariidae
Genus:	Pterodroma
Species:	P. caribbaea
Binomial name
Pterodroma caribbaea Carte, 1866

The Jamaican petrel (Pterodroma caribbaea) is (or was) a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus, Pterodroma. It is also known as the Blue Mountain duck. It is related to the black-capped petrel P. hasitata, and often considered a subspecies.

File:Pterodroma caribbaea.png

Illustration from 1907

This species was last collected in 1879, and was searched for without success between 1996 and 2000. However, it cannot yet be classified as extinct because nocturnal petrels are notoriously difficult to record, and it may conceivably occur on Dominica and Guadeloupe.

Several species of lice are known to have parasitized the Jamaica and black-capped petrels [1]. If the former is extinct, one of these lice, the phtilopterid Saemundssonia jamaicensis may be coextinct as it has not been found on other birds (May 1990).

References

• Mey, Eberhard (1990): Eine neue ausgestorbene Vogel-Ischnozere von Neuseeland, Huiacola extinctus (Insecta, Phthiraptera). Zoologischer Anzeiger 224(1/2): 49-73. [German with English abstract] PDF fulltext

External links

• BirdLife species factsheet
• Jamaican petrel