Rodrigues parakeet
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Rodrigues parakeet ( Psittacula exsul ) |
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| Psittacula exsul | ||||||||||||
| ( A. Newton , 1872) |
The Rodrigues parakeet ( Psittacula exsul ) is an extinct small parrot from the genus of the noble parakeet . It was endemic to the forests of the Mascarene island of Rodrigues .
He was first mentioned by François Leguat , who was the leader of eight French Huguenots who colonized the island between 1691 and 1693. He described the bird as abundant, easily edible, and able to imitate speech. A tamed bird spoke French and Flemish , and the Huguenots took it with them when they finally left the island for Mauritius . Another description comes from Julien Tafforet's travelogue Relation de l'Île Rodrigue from 1726. The next mention comes from the mathematician Alexandre Guy Pingré , who traveled to Rodrigues in 1761 to observe a transit of Venus . He noticed that the bird had already become rare. A copy that was sent in 1872 by Sir Edward Newton , a colonial administrator in Mauritius, to his brother Alfred in Cambridge , served as the basis for the first scientific description in 1872.
The species-specific epithet " exsul = banished" refers to the refugee Leguat who discovered this bird. The last living specimen was seen in 1875. Two complete museum specimens exist as well as various subfossil bones. One is a female and the other is a young male. The species differs from other parakeets within the genus by a slate-blue - not green - plumage. However, green specimens were also mentioned in early reports. It is no longer possible to determine whether two color morphs existed, the green coloring comes from young birds, or whether there was once a short-lived colony of a related green taxon . The Rodrigues parakeet reached a length of 40 centimeters.
The extinction of this species was believed to have been caused by a combination of habitat loss and hunting as a grain pest and food source.
literature
- Anthony Cheke & Julian Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo , T. & AD Poyser, 2008, ISBN 0-7136-6544-0 .
Web links
- Psittacula Exsul in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on 5 November, 2008.