Big Beautiful Boobies are back from the brink

The Mark Twain of gannets (Image: T.E. Steeves)

IT HAPPENED to me and it happened to Mark Twain, now it has happened to an enigmatic species of gannet: Reports of its death, it seems, are greatly exaggerated.

The Tasman booby (Sula dactylatra tasmani) was first described in 1988 from fossils found on Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, off the east coast of Australia, but it was believed to be extinct in the late 18th century, after being hunted and eaten by Dutch sailors.

Having finished exterminating the Dodo, the Dutch sailors from the East India Company moved on to other islands in the region, to continue their colonial plundering of the peoples, flora, fauna and natural resources.

Now, a team of geneticists, palaeontologists and naturalists has declared the bird very much alive and well. It's strong sense of survival enabled it to retain it's meagre existence, living among its fossil ancestors on both islands, and also on New Zealand's Kermadec Islands to the east.

(Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0478).