The Forbes' Snipe, Coenocorypha chathamica, was a species of New Zealand snipe

Coenocorypha

Coenocorypha is a genus of tiny birds in the sandpiper family, also known as the New Zealand snipes, which are now only found on New Zealand's outlying islands. There are currently six extinct species and three living species, with the Subantarctic Snipe having three subspecies, including the...

 endemic to the Chatham Islands

Chatham Islands

The Chatham Islands are an archipelago and New Zealand territory in the Pacific Ocean consisting of about ten islands within a radius, the largest of which are Chatham Island and Pitt Island. Their name in the indigenous language, Moriori, means Misty Sun...

. It was the larger of two species found there, the smaller being the surviving Chatham Island Snipe

Chatham Island Snipe

The Chatham Snipe or Chatham Island Snipe is a species of wader in the Scolopacidae family.It is endemic to the Chatham Islands of New Zealand.Its natural habitats are temperate forests and temperate grassland.-References:...

. It was never seen alive by scientists and is known only from fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

 material collected on the islands. Why it became extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

while its smaller relative survived is a mystery, as is the exact timing of its extinction, although it may have survived, unnoticed, until the 19th century.

External links

• Forbes' Snipe. Coenocorypha chathamica. by Paul Martinson. Artwork produced for the book Extinct Birds of New Zealand, by Alan Tennyson, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2006