Comparing Akialoa Prints

Beneath the horizontal line are the following:

Akialoa in Naupaka, a Marian Berger lithograph from 1985
Akialoa in Purple Kauai Lobelia, a Marian Berger Giclee from 2010
Greater Akialoa by Frederick Frohawk
Lesser Akialoa by Frederick Frohawk
Greater Akialoa from a print of an original in the Hawaiian Legacy Archive

I did not know there was a greater and a lesser Akialoa until I saw Frohawk's Birds of Hawaii. Judging by bill length, it would appear that Marian Berger is painting the Greater Akialoa.

Now for the color differences: Berger clearly shows a brighter, more yellow Akialoa than Frohawk, and a somewhat more colorful and greener bird than that in the print from the Hawaiian Legacy Archive. A search of the internet provided only images of stuffed specimens, no color photo of a live bird. Based on several of these, it appears the colors Marian Berger used are most accurate. This is further substantiated by the fact that the prints in Frohawk's Birds of Hawaii are very so-so.

The Akialoa is now thought extinct. For a while biologists believed there were two subspecies of Akialoa, the Greater and the Lesser Akialoa; current thought is that there was a single species only.

What a beautiful bird; I would love to have seen one in the wild.

Akialoa - Fringillidae Hemignathus obscurus Greater Akialoa - Fringillidae Hemignathus obscurus Lesser Akialoa - Fringillidae Hemignathus obscurus