Emus, of the sort that have disappeared

[xenith]

A couple of years ago someone gave me a book about Matthew Finder's travels. One day I'll get around to actually read it, but I've looked at the pictures. It has some interesting pictures, including this one of Circular Head/Stanley by an unknown artist. It has emus! Which I thought cool because I hadn't seen a painting with emus in it before. Not the Tasmanian emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae diemenensis), which was a different sub-species to the mainland bird. Being a large flightless bird, it went the way of many other large flightless birds once Europeans arrived.



The Dept of Environment's Species Profile and Threats Database entry says it was smaller and darker than its mainland cousins, and it "had become locally extinct in some areas by the 1830s, and its numbers were severely depleted by the 1840s and most were gone by 1850. The last specimens were collected in 1845, but the species is believed to have survived in the wild until about 1865 and in captivity until at least 1873, and possibly until about 1884, but this latter bird may have been an Emu (mainland)." I think that 1845 collection was the last documents account of them in the wild.

I went to see if I could find some more pictures. None as part of the landscape unless you count this one from the State Library might be too. Also a botanical-type print, which I found a copy of on Wikipedia




Further reading

SPRAT entry

An Ornithological Disaster: Thomas Nevin's emu 1878

Comments

[kaelajael.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool!

And I loved that series of silhouettes on the road. We had a lot of fun watching for them once we realised they were a recurring feature...and we regretted not taking shots of all of them.

[monissaw.livejournal.com]

There used to be, either side of Oatlands, a series of topiaries cut into the hedges and bushes in the paddocks. Some of them have been recut, most have been overgrown. They were great for entertaining bored kids on the long trip to Hobart (as someone who used to be the bored kid).

I don't know if the silhouettes were inspired by them but they certainly serve the same purpose. It takes a lot of road trips before you can find them all consistently.