Society Parakeet

The Brown-headed running Parakeet ( Cyanoramphus ulietanus ) is an extinct parrot from the genus of running parakeets.

Description

He reached a length of 25 centimeters. His head was chocolate brown. The bill showed a light blue -gray color and had a black tip. The back and wings are brown colored. The rear back and tail-coverts had a reddish brown tint. The under wing-coverts and the Federschäfte were gray purple. The chest, the abdomen and under tail-coverts were yellow ocher. The middle tail feathers olive-brown and the outer blue-gray. The feet were gray brown. The eyes were orange.

Occurrence

Its occurrence was limited to Raiatea ( Society Islands ). He probably lived in forested areas.

Extinction

The Brown-headed parakeet run is only known from two museum specimens, the origin of which year there are contradictory information. While Erwin Stresemann ( 1950) and James Cowan Greenway (1958 ) refer to 1773 or 1774, the New Zealand ornithologist David G. Medway goes on a background of old travel diaries from the fact that these specimens were killed in November 1777 during the third Cook - Pacific travel. Today they are in the Natural History Museum in London and the Natural History Museum in Vienna. The reasons for its extinction is not known, but it is probably extinct shortly after its discovery.