Myadestes obscurus

The ōmao (Myadestes obscurus), also called the Hawaiian thrush, is an endemic species of robin-like bird found only on the island of Hawaii. Ōmao are closely related to the other endemic thrushes of the Hawaiian Islands, the kāmao, the olomao, and the puaiohi. Ōmao are found primarily in rainforests in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Big Island. Population estimates approximate 170,000 birds, making it the most common of the Hawaiian thrushes. It appears to have a stable population, but because the entire population exists on a small range and is endemic to a single island, it is considered near threatened.

==Taxonomy== The ʻōmaʻo was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the flycatchers in the genus Muscicapa and coined the binomial name Muscicapa obscura. The specific epithet is from Latin and means "dark" or "dusky". Gmelin based his account on the "Dusky fly-catcher" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had examined a specimen from the "Sandwich Islands", now the Hawaiian Islands, that belonged to the Leverian Museum in London. The ʻōmaʻo in now placed in the genus Myadestes that was introduced in 1838 by the English ornithologist William Swainson. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.