Hawaii Mamo †

Birdfinding.info ⇒  The last documented observation of Hawaii Mamo occurred near Ka’umana in July 1898.  The species had been uncommon in lowland and foothill forests of the Big Island throughout most of the 1800s.  Only a few specimens were collected in part because it was rarely encountered and in part because it had a limited kind of immunity from persecution—in that its feathers were reserved for adornments of royalty such as the “million dollar cloak” of King Kamehameha I (held by the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum) which includes an estimated 450,000 feathers from an estimated 80,000 Hawaii Mamos.