The echo parakeet is endemic to the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius and formerly Réunion. It is the only living native parrot of the islands; all others have become extinct due to human activity. The species is limited to forests with native vegetation, and is largely restricted to the Black River Gorges National Park in southwest Mauritius.
About Echo parakeet in brief
The echo parakeet is endemic to the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius and formerly Réunion. It is the only living native parrot of the islands; all others have become extinct due to human activity. The species is limited to forests with native vegetation, and is largely restricted to the Black River Gorges National Park in southwest Mauritius. It nests in natural cavities in old trees, and clutches usually consist of two to four white eggs. The female incubates the eggs, while the male feeds her, and the young are brooded by the female. Not all pairs are strictly monogamous, as breeding between females and \”auxiliary males\” is known to occur. It was downgraded from critically endangered to endangered in 2007, and its population had reached 750 birds by 2019, whereafter it was classified as vulnerable. The related rose-ringed parakeets which has been introduced to Mauritius is similar, though slightly different in colouration and smaller. It has a wide range of vocalisations, the most common sounding like \”chaa-chaa, chaa- chaa\”. The species was first recorded on Réunion in 1674 by the French traveler Sieur Dubois, and on Mauritius in 1732 by French engineer Jean-François Charpentier de Cossigny. In 1805, the Dutch naturalist Pieter Pieter Boddaertes coined the scientific name Psittacus eques, based on a plate by the artist François-Nicolas Martin, which was accompanied by specimens of the Réunion bird.
The specific name eques eques refers to the military colours of a French cavalryman, though whether the specimens were live or stuffed is unknown; all specimens are believed to have been stuffed or stuffed in the Aubry collection of the Cabinet of Versailles, Paris, where they were kept. The Réunion parakeett probably went extinct in the 1730s due to hunting and deforestation, and was last reported in 1731. The Mauritius subspecies became P. eques echo in the 19th century, when it was described by the naturalist Jacques Brisson de Brisson, in his work Histoire Naturelle. In the 20th century its numbers declined and it was referred to as \”the world’s rarest parrot\”. In the 1980s, the species was called the “world’s rareest parrot” by some scientists, and in the 1990s it was called “the endangered parrots of the world” It is 34–42 cm long, weighs 167–193 g, and its wingspan is 49–54 cm. It is generally green and has two collars on the neck; the male has one black and one pink collar, and the female has one green and one indistinct black collar. The upper bill of the male is red and the lower blackish brown; the female’s upper bill is black. The skin around the eyes is orange and the feet are grey. Juveniles have a red-orange bill, which turns black after they fledge, and immature birds are similar.
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This page is based on the article Echo parakeet published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
