Tasmanian emu
The Tasmanian emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae diemenensis) is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was found in Tasmania, where it had become isolated during the Late Pleistocene. As opposed to the other insular emu taxa, the King Island emu and the Kangaroo Island emu, the population on Tasmania was sizable, meaning that there were no marked effects of small population size as in the other two isolates.
| Tasmanian emu | |
|---|---|
| 1910 restoration by John Gerrard Keulemans, based on a skin at the British Museum, posed after a photograph of the mainland emu | |
Extinct (1865) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Infraclass: | Palaeognathae |
| Order: | Casuariiformes |
| Family: | Casuariidae |
| Genus: | Dromaius |
| Species: | |
| Subspecies: | †D. n. diemenensis |
| Trinomial name | |
| †Dromaius novaehollandiae diemenensis Le Souef, 1907 | |
| Geographic distribution of emu taxa and historic shoreline reconstructions around Tasmania | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Dromaeius diemenensis (lapsus) Le Souef, 1907 | |
The Tasmanian emu became extinct around 1865 according to the Australian Species Profile and Threats database. This was officially recorded in 1997 when changes to listings of nationally threatened species saw the Tasmanian emu added to the list of species presumed extinct.
Information regarding the emu is reliant on 19th century documentary evidence and the limited number of emu specimens in museums. As a consequence one of the biggest challenges in researching the Tasmanian emu is the many names or spellings used to describe the emu. The early colonial accounts spell it 'emue', Reverend Robert Knopwood spelt it as 'emew'. Other early accounts referred to it as a 'cassowary' and even an 'ostrich'. George Augustus Robinson recorded two indigenous words for the Tasmanian emu. The Oyster Bay Indigenous language word for emu is Pun.nune.ner and the Brune Indigenous language word is Gonanner.