Profile
In flight
Ghosts of the Past
New Caledonian Owlet-nightjar
Aegotheles savesi
- mythic
- 24 km/h
- Critically Endangered
Two confirmed records in 150 years. Your message comes from a bird that might not exist anymore.
- Population
- 1-49 mature individuals per BirdLife/IUCN (2025 assessment); functionally unknown — not confirmed since 1998 despite 500+ field-days of targeted searching 2002-2007, so the true figure could be zero
- Habitat
- Humid evergreen riverine/lowland-to-montane forest and Melaleuca savanna, historically recorded near ~1,000 m elevation; may now persist only in remote forest massifs such as Kouakoue
- Fun fact
- Known from only two museum specimens (collected 1880 and 1913-1915) and a single credible sighting in 1998, it is the second-largest owlet-nightjar species ever recorded, behind only the extinct New Zealand owlet-nightjar.
- Range
- Endemic to New Caledonia (French territory, South Pacific); known historical records from southern Grande Terre (e.g. Tonghoué, Rivière Ni valley), possibly persisting in remote massifs such as Kouakoue
- Diet
- Insects, including beetles (Coleoptera found in the type specimen's gut contents); presumed sit-and-wait/hawking predator of small invertebrates, foraging from sub-canopy perches or the ground
- Size
- 0.28 m
