Critically Endangered
Tuamotu Kingfisher
Todiramphus gambieri
The Mangareva kingfisher, also known as Tuamotu kingfisher, is a kingfisher in the family Alcedinidae, endemic to Niau in French Polynesia.
Appearance
The Mangareva kingfisher has a cream-coloured head and neck, with blue ear-coverts, a white chin and frequently a rufous band across the breast. The crown has a variable amount of blue feathers.
Range and habitat
The species only occurs on the island of Niau in the Tuamotus, French Polynesia. It prefers semi-open habitat, among them coconut plantations, limestone forests, and cultivated areas around villages. Foraging may take place in wetlands and coastal areas.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Breeding takes place primarily from September to January in nest cavities excavated from dead and decaying coconut palms.
In crisis
It is classified as critically endangered. The population of the Mangareva kingfisher appears to have never been very high in recent decades, and has fluctuated heavily in the 2000s. Total numbers of 400-600 birds were reported in 1974, with a drop to 39-51 individuals in 2003 and 2004, and as subsequent rise to an apparently stable population of 135 individuals in 2009.
The species is currently classified as critically endangered by the IUCN due to the very small population size and heavily restricted distribution. The main threats contributing to the species' decline are thought to be predation by cats on nestlings, food competition with rats, a lack of suitable nesting trees (particularly old coconut palms), and generally favourable hunting habitat, as it prefers landscapes cleared with regular burning, a practice that is seeing less use.
Tuamotu 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 Tuamotu Kingfisher, Wikidata item Q1092052. 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.
