Necropsar: the Rodrigues starling known from fossils

Necropsar rodericanus, the Rodrigues starling, was a passerine bird from Rodrigues in the Mascarene Islands. Its identity rests chiefly on subfossil bones collected in limestone caves and plains, not on a preserved skin. Historical accounts mention birds on Rodrigues, but connecting brief descriptions to the skeletal species requires caution. A 2014 revision re-examined museum collections, designated a lectotype skull and showed that some bones once associated with the name had been misidentified. The extinct bird catalogue includes Necropsar among island birds whose anatomy is better known than their living appearance.

Quick facts

A Rodrigues bird named from a museum series

Subfossil bird bones were collected on Rodrigues by the magistrate George Jenner in 1866 and 1871 and by Henry H. Slater in 1874. The finds came from caves in the limestone plain of Plaine Corail, in the island’s southwest. Albert Günther and Edward Newton formally described Necropsar rodericanus in 1879, using a name that Slater had proposed in an unpublished manuscript.

The original description drew on specimens in both the Natural History Museum in London and the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge. It illustrated several cranial and postcranial elements but did not designate one holotype. That left later researchers to determine which surviving museum objects could be matched to the original figures and description.

Julian Hume’s 2014 study of Mascarene starlings re-examined the collections. He identified the most diagnostic cranium, NHMUK A9050, as the lectotype. A rostrum, NHMUK A1468, and an incomplete mandible, UMZC 566, were designated paralectotypes because they could also be tied to the original description. The same review noted that some postcranial material had been erroneously assigned to the common myna, Acridotheres tristis, rather than to the Rodrigues starling. The historical specimen list must therefore be treated critically.

What the bones show

The lectotype skull and associated jaw material establish a robust, elongated beak and a bird within the starling family. The broader cave collections include shoulder, wing and leg elements referred to Necropsar, though their certainty varies because the fossils are not all connected to the name-bearing skull. Comparative anatomy supports a large-bodied starling, not a precise body mass or a complete soft-tissue outline.

The wing and leg proportions do not indicate complete flightlessness. It is reasonable to infer that the species retained flight, as expected for a starling on a relatively small oceanic island. That anatomical comparison cannot supply a flight speed, migration distance or preferred height in the forest canopy.

The skull and bill may have been capable of handling a varied diet. Fruit, seeds and invertebrates are plausible foods for a starling, but no stomach contents or securely associated feeding traces identify the actual menu. A strong-looking bill is not enough to prove that the bird specialised on hard seeds or a particular fruit.

Historical descriptions and uncertain appearance

François Leguat described birds on Rodrigues in the late seventeenth century, and Julien Tafforet recorded island fauna during his stay in 1725–1726. These accounts provide a historical context for the bird’s survival near the period when Europeans began documenting the Mascarenes. Their wording is brief and was not based on comparison with the later fossil material, so the match between a named passage and Necropsar should not be treated as certain in every detail.

No preserved skin, feather or contemporary illustration securely shows the Rodrigues starling’s colour. Older images that depict a white starling can conflate it with the better-documented Réunion crested starling, Fregilupus varius, or turn uncertain text into a confident palette. The fossils support a starling-like body and bill; they do not reveal whether the bird was white, brown, mottled or brightly marked.

For the same reason, nest placement, pair behaviour, call and seasonal movement remain unknown. The living appearance in a reconstruction is a carefully labelled artistic choice rather than a portrait copied from a specimen.

An island extinction with several possible pressures

The Rodrigues starling was no longer reported in the written record by the middle of the eighteenth century. The surviving accounts do not give a last sighting precise enough to identify the final individual. The late Holocene cave fossils also do not provide a sharply bounded extinction horizon.

Human settlement changed the island’s forests and introduced new animals. Habitat loss, hunting and predation by introduced mammals are plausible pressures on ground-feeding or ground-nesting birds. The remains do not quantify the relative effect of each pressure for Necropsar, and a causal story about one event would go beyond the evidence.

The cave assemblage preserves an island fauna over time, not a single ecological moment. Some bones may have been redeposited or accumulated over multiple visits. It is therefore safest to say that the species disappeared during the historical transformation of Rodrigues, while the exact timing and cause remain unresolved.

Evidence and reconstruction

The best-supported reconstruction is a sizeable starling with a robust bill, on Rodrigues in the late Holocene. The lectotype skull is direct evidence; the assignment of additional body bones rests on comparisons and historical collection records. Flight capacity is inferred from anatomy and living relatives. Colour, calls and detailed feeding behaviour are not known.

The Rodrigues starling illustrates a broader problem in island palaeontology: fossil names can be built from mixed museum series, while old natural-history notes may describe birds that were never preserved as specimens. Revising the collection clarifies which bones bear the name and leaves a more accurate, if less visually complete, account of the species.

Its history can be compared with the better-preserved Mascarene parrot Lophopsittacus, but the two birds should not be assumed to share the same diet or extinction trajectory simply because both lived on Indian Ocean islands.