Wood harrier (Circus dossenus)

The wood harrier is a biological species described from Holocene subfossil material recovered in the Hawaiian Islands and formally treated by Storrs L. Olson and Helen F. James in work culminating in a 1991 monographic account summarized in later references. The species was placed in the harrier genus Circus and given the specific name dossenus (Latin for "a clown or jester") by the authors, who explained the epithet as a reference to initial confusion in its generic placement rather than as a cultural or mythological designation.

Known only from skeletal remains and comparisons with living Circus species, the wood harrier was small for the genus with relatively short wings and proportionally long legs. These proportions led earlier workers to mistake its remains for an Accipiter and made its overall form more reminiscent of other Hawaiian island-adapted raptors such as the stilt owls Grallistrix. No soft-tissue coloration or plumage details are preserved in the available material.

Inferred from morphology and context rather than direct observation: the wood harrier was adapted to closed-forest habitats, with shorter wings suited to maneuvering in wooded environments rather than the open-country quartering flight typical of many harriers. Its diet is inferred to have consisted of insects and small forest birds (for example Hawaiian honeycreepers) because pre-Polynesian Hawaii lacked terrestrial mammals. Authors also infer it was most likely a ground breeder. These behavioral conclusions are morphological and ecological inferences based on subfossil remains and island ecology.