[ Illustration by Virginia Greene of three Stephens Island wrens alongside a cat’s trackway. ]

“Meanwhile, the cat population in Stephens Island grew and they began to kill the birds in alarming numbers. The matter was made worse by the fact that the wren was flightless, who could only run low on the ground or hop from branch to branch. The bird was originally found all over New Zealand, but predators such as the Polynesian rat killed off nearly the entire population except for a small colony on Stephens Island. The birds probably migrated to this isolated island during the last glaciation when it was connected to the mainland. When the sea level rose, Stephens Island became an isolated safe heaven with no natural predators, until David Lyall arrived with his cat.

By February 1895, less than a year since Tibbles brought the first specimen, the wren had become impossible to be found. That same month Lyall wrote regrettably to Walter Buller that “the cats have become wild and are making sad havoc among all the birds.” By then, the bird was seen alive only twice.”

Green bee-eaters (Merops orientalis) in India

Paphiopedilum lowii

Syn.: Cypripedium lowii; Cordula lowii

Pholisma sonorae is a parasitic plant in the same family as the forget-me-not (Boraginaceae) which grows in the Sonoran desert. It only emerges from the ground to flower. Like some other subterranean parasitic plants, it only emerges above ground to flower. The fact that the flowering shoots resemble mushrooms seems like a pretty good example of convergent evolution!

Bimpe for Stylist France, ph. Synchrodogs

Stelis pachyphyta