There was much uncertainty surrounding the specimen, as it had no information on its place of origin or date of collection.
Sharpe in 1880. Thus, although Buller's description – a few throwaway lines in an account of the
striated starling referring to the unique specimen – is barely sufficient and his name nonsensical, it is nonetheless valid according to
ICZN rules. There exists a drawing by
Georg Forster, made on June 1, 1774, and some notes of a bird collected on
Rai'atea (formerly known as
Ulieta) between May 14 and June 1 (popularised in
Martin Davies' 2005 novel ''
The Conjurer's Bird'' as the "Mysterious Bird of Ulieta"). Sharpe and many subsequent authors claimed that the
bird on the painting was the same species as the specimen, despite numerous discrepancies between the specimen and Forster's description.
Stresemann debunked this theory thoroughly, but writers did not stop referring
A. mavornata to Forster's bird, connecting it with the
Society Islands or with
Cook's second voyage. Only in 1986, when
Olson published the results of his research, which included analysis of Bloxam's original diary and notes and concluded that his "Sturnus Mautiensis" can be identified with Buller's
A. mavornata, was the mystery of Specimen 12.192 resolved. Since Bloxam's notes were originally published in a much
bowdlerized and misleading edition where it is only mentioned that they "...saw [...] a starling..." without any details and especially no reference to a specimen, the true origin of the mysterious starling was long overlooked. In an ironic twist, Forster's bird, which had long puzzled
ornithologists and was sometimes called "the mysterious bird of Raiatea" and variously considered a
thrush or
honeyeater is almost certainly another now-extinct species of
Aplonis – thus, one could say that there are indeed two, not one species of "mysterious starling" from
Pacific islands. ==References==