The Bermuda towhee (''Pipilo naufragus'') is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

bird of the

towhee A towhee is any one of a number of species of birds in the genus ''Pipilo'' or ''Melozone'' within the family Passerellidae (which also includes American sparrows and juncos). Towhees typically have longer tails than other Passerellidae. Most sp ...

genus ''Pipilo'' that was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

Taxonomy

It was a large member of the genus and closely related to the

eastern towhee The eastern towhee (''Pipilo erythrophthalmus''), also known as chewink, joree, or joree bird, is a large American sparrow, New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been under debate in recent decades, and formerly this bird and the spo ...

. The scientific description was in 2012, based on Pleistocene and Holocene remains from

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

cave deposits. 38 bones from at least five individuals are known.

History

An old travel report by

William Strachey William Strachey (4 April 1572 – buried 16 August 1621) was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America. He is best remembered today as the eye-witness reporter ...

who was shipwrecked on Bermuda from 1609 to 1610 might refer to that species. He wrote in 1625: The exact cause for its extinction is unknown, but it most definitely became extinct soon after human arrival to Bermuda in the early 1600s. Its decline is thought to have been accelerated by predation from

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

References

*Olson, Storrs L.; Wingate, David B. (2012). "A new species of towhee (Aves: Emberizidae: Pipilo) from Quaternary deposits on Bermuda". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 125 (1): 85–96. *Olson, Storrs L.; Hearty, Paul J. (2009). "A Sustained +21 m Sea-Level Highstand during MIS 11 (400 Ka): Direct Fossil and Sedimentary Evidence from Bermuda". Quaternary Science Reviews, 28(3-4): 271-285 {{Taxonbar, from=Q4892659 Extinct animals of North America Pipilo Bird extinctions since 1500 Fossil taxa described in 2012 Birds described in 2012 † Extinct birds of Atlantic islands Taxa named by David B. Wingate Late Quaternary prehistoric birds