Talpanas lippa, the Kauaʻi mole duck,[Julian Pender Hume, Michael Walters: Extinct Birds. A & C Black, London 2012. ., p 57] is an extinction species of duck.
Etymology
The genus name
Talpanas is taken from the
Latin word
talpa, meaning mole and referring to the small size of the eyes, and the
Greek language word
anas, or duck. The species name
lippa is from the Latin lippus, meaning "nearly blind".
Description
The
tarsometatarsus (lower leg bones) of
Talpanas lippa were short and stout, and the
braincase shallow and wide relative to its length. It had very small orbits (eye sockets) and also very small optic
foramen (holes in the skull through which the optic nerves pass as they travel from the eyes to the brain). Together, these physical characteristics show that the eyes and
optic nerve of this duck were quite reduced in size, and it can be assumed that this species was probably both
blindness and
flightless bird.
However, the maxillo-mandibular foramina (holes through which the
trigeminal nerve passes) are extremely large, indicating larger nerves were travelling through it. The authors hypothesize that this blind, or nearly blind, duck would have used tactile and olfactory stimuli (the senses of touch and
olfaction) from its beak to explore its surroundings in the absence of good vision.
The holotype, a partial skull, is stored at the Smithsonian Institution with specimen number USNM 535683.
