Extinct storm petrel DNA


Jane Lucas – 08/10/04


A brown envelope from Paris containing tissue samples from the extinct New Zealand storm petrel has just arrived for Bruce Robertson to begin a taxonomic study on the bird.


New Zealand storm petrel
New Zealand storm petrel Click here to view a larger version

These are important pieces in the puzzle in determining the taxonomy of the New Zealand storm petrel, said Dr Robertson, a postdoctoral scholar in Biological Sciences.

The New Zealand storm petrel, that was thought to be extinct, and which has been tentatively described as, Oceanites maorianus, is only known from three museum skins collected in the 19th century.

But that could change with sightings initially reported by Brent Stephenson and Sav Saville off the Coromandel in January 2003, and since then in the Hauraki Gulf and northern New Zealand. The sightings captured national and international media attention and reports indicated the extinct bird was alive and well in some numbers, although this has still not been officially confirmed by the Ornithological Society of New Zealand’s Rare Birds Committee, the governing body for such cases.

The museum specimens were the only record of the bird until 2003. To confirm that the rediscovered birds are New Zealand storm petrels, samples from the two specimens, which are held at Paris Mus&#233um National d’Histoire Naturelle have been sent to Dr Robertson for molecular testing to determine taxonomic similarities. Another bird is also held in the British Natural History Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire, from which samples have also been requested.

We shall test the museum samples to confirm that New Zealand storm petrel is a separate species, or whether it is a sub-species or variant of another storm petrel. We then need to determine whether the northern New Zealand birds are the same. If it is, then this will be an extremely important step in the recognition of this rare species and aid in setting its conservation priority, Dr Robertson said.

The location of the breeding colony and assessment of population size is being attempted this summer by the New Zealand storm petrel workgroup. With a permit to capture the birds granted by Department of Conservation, it is hoped a blood sample will be collected. “Being seabirds they will be quite resilient to capture. Once we have some samples we can determine the genetic variation within the group and figure out what we have got.”

The sightings certainly appear to be of the extinct New Zealand storm petrel, the first in around 150 years, Dr Robertson said. “They have distinctive black belly markings, longer foot projection, and long narrow wings.

This work is highlighting how little we know about storm petrels, their taxonomy and populations, and how a taxonomic study of this nature is so important,” he added.

The molecular and taxonomic work will be carried out in Neil Gemmell’s DNA laboratory in Biological Sciences with the recently acquired state-of-the-art automated sequencer for DNA sequence analysis.