Abstract:
The New Zealand owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles novaezealandiae) was a small (c. 150 g), almost flightless endemic bird that was widely distributed before human settlement. It was extinct before European settlement and has not so far been found definitely in a Polynesian cultural context. A series of accelerator mass spectrometry 14C ages on gelatin from owlet-nightjar bones from non-cultural deposits was analysed using Bayesian statistics. The results indicate that the owlet-nightjar may have begun to decline before Polynesian settlement. Such a decline would be consistent with the effects of predation by a new predator-most probably the Pacific rat Rattus exulans.