Critically Endangered
Marquesan Kingfisher
Todiramphus godeffroyi
Marquesan Kingfisher is a bird in the family Alcedinidae (order Coraciiformes) — Todiramphus godeffroyi, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to France.
Appearance
It has completely white plumage on its crown, mantle, forehead, and center upper back along with featuring a blue eye-stripe pattern ending as broken line behind head.
This unique bird is approximately 22 cm (9 in) tall with a buff triangle on its upper back.
Range and habitat
The species occurs only on the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. It inhabits tropical moist lowland forests, where it prefers thick, humid vegetation along mountain streams and valleys. It is endemic to French Polynesia.
The population has rapidly declined in recent decades, and it has become extinct on several smaller islands of the group, being reported only from Tahuata in 2011.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Its diet consists of a variety of insects and small vertebrates, mostly lizards.
In crisis
It is threatened by habitat loss and predation by introduced species, and is currently classified as Critically endangered, with fewer than 500 individuals left in the wild. The Marquesan kingfisher is Critically endangered and currently likely numbers less than 500 individuals. Its forest habitat suffers from the presence of introduced species like feral cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs.
It is also subject to predation by the introduced great horned owl, the common myna and the black rat.
Marquesan Kingfisher is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Marquesan Kingfisher, Wikidata item Q1262167. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
