Lord Howe Gerygone

Open encyclopedia reference

The Lord Howe gerygone or Lord Howe gerygone flyeater (Gerygone insularis) is an extinct small bird in the family Acanthizidae, brown and greyish in color. Its head was brown apart from a pale grey eye-ring and a grey throat and chin, many parts of the animal varied to the colour of yellow, this being apparent in its bright yellow belly. It made its home in the canopies of the island's forest until the early 20th century. The bird has had a variety of monikers: locally, it was known as the "rain-bird" due to its activity after the rains, or the "pop-goes-the-weasel", due to the similarity of its song to the well-known tune. The bird was endemic to Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea (part of New South Wales, Australia). There have been no records of the species since 1928, and it is considered to be extinct. Its extinction is almost certainly due to predation by black rats which were accidentally introduced to the island in 1918 following the shipwreck of the SS Makambo there.

Wikipedia contributors, Lord Howe gerygone; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:13:02.852724+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Gerygone insularis E. P. Ramsay, 1878

Name authority

E. P. Ramsay, 1878

Common name

Lord Howe Gerygone

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Acanthizidae

Genus

Gerygone

Extinction status

Recorded extinct

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyAcanthizidae Bonaparte, 1854
11. genusGerygone Gould, 1841
12. speciesGerygone insularis E. P. Ramsay, 1878

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Gerygone. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 46 records assigned to Acanthizidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. Ramsay, & Edward Pierson. (1878). On two new species of Gerygone. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, Vol. 3. Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3FXND. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.