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Concept
Mascarene grey parakeet
Summary
The Mascarene grey parakeet, Mauritius grey parrot, or Thirioux's grey parrot (Psittacula bensoni), is an extinct species of parrot which was endemic to the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius and Réunion in the western Indian Ocean. It has been classified as a member of the tribe Psittaculini, along with other parrots from the Islands.
Subfossil bones of the Mascarene grey parakeet found on Mauritius were first described in 1973 as belonging to a smaller relative of the broad-billed parrot in the genus Lophopsittacus. Apart from their size, the bones were very similar to those of other Mascarene parrots. The subfossils were later connected with 17th- and 18th-century descriptions of small grey parrots on Mauritius and Réunion, together with a single illustration published in a journal describing a voyage in 1602, and the species was instead reassigned to the genus Psittacula.
The Mascarene grey parakeet was grey, had a long tail, and was larger than other species of the genus Psittacula, which are usually green. The grey parrots were said to be easy to hunt, as the capture of one would result in its to summon the whole flock. They were also considered to be crop pests, and being such easy prey meant that they were extensively hunted. Coupled with deforestation, this pushed them into extinction. This had happened by the 1730s on Réunion and by the 1760s on Mauritius.
In 1973, English ornithologist Daniel T. Holyoak described some small parrot bones that he had discovered among a collection of broad-billed parrot (Lophopsittacus mauritianus) subfossils in the Zoology Museum of Cambridge University. These remains had been collected in the early 20th century by French amateur naturalist Louis Etienne Thirioux, who had found them in a cave on Le Pouce mountain, on the Mascarene Island of Mauritius. They were placed in the zoology museum by 1908. Apart from their size and robustness, Holyoak did not find the bones to be distinct from those of the Mascarene parrot genera Lophopsittacus, Mascarinus (the Mascarene parrot), Necropsittacus (the Rodrigues parrot), and Psittacula (which had two or three other species inhabiting the Mascarene Islands).
Official source
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