Mutiny on the Bounty Coleman, McIntosh and others—generally vanished from the public eye after the closing of the procedures. After leaving Tahiti on 22 September 1789, Christian sailed "Bounty" west in search of a safe haven. He then formed the idea of settling on Pitcairn Island, far to the east of Tahiti; the island had been reported in 1767, but its exact location was never verified. After months of searching, Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790, east of its recorded position. This longitudinal error contributed to the mutineers' decision to settle on Pitcairn. On arrival the ship was unloaded and stripped of
Henderson archaic pigeon Henderson archaic pigeon The Henderson archaic pigeon ("Bountyphaps obsoleta"), or Henderson Island archaic pigeon, is an extinct bird in the Columbidae, or pigeon family. It was described in 2008 as a new genus and species from subfossil remains found on Henderson Island in the Pitcairn Group of south-eastern Polynesia. The genus was named for both the ship HMS "Bounty" with which, following the famous mutiny, Europeans first discovered the Pitcairn Islands, and for the former bounty the bird provided as food; with the Greek "phaps" (wild pigeon). The specific epithet comes from the Latin adjective for "extinct" or "forgotten about".