The British Museum of Natural History is apparently housing a reed-warbler specimen that is sister to the Leeward Islands Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus musae (J. R. Forster)) , a now extinct species that occurred with two subspecies on the islands of Huahine and Ra’iatea in the leeward group of the Society Islands.

However, this single specimen appears not to be identical to either of the two known subspecies and was proposed to be classified as “A. musae subsp. (Leeward Islands), with uncertainty regarding the island and subspecies.” [1]; it might indeed represent another, third subspecies that had been collected from another island within the leeward group.

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References:

[1] Alice Cibois; Jean-Claude Thibault; Eric Pasquet: Molecular and morphological analysis of Pacific reed warbler specimens of dubious origin, including Acrocephalus luscinius astrolabii. Bulletin of the British Ornithologist’s Club 131(1): 32-40. 2011

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edited: 05.07.2023