Newton’s parakeet

Newton’s parakeet was endemic to the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. Its plumage was mostly greyish or slate blue in colour, which is unusual in Psittacula, a genus containing mostly green species. The male had stronger colours than the female and possessed a reddish instead of black beak, but details of a mature male’s appearance are uncertain.

About Newton’s parakeet in brief

Newton’s parakeet was endemic to the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. Its plumage was mostly greyish or slate blue in colour, which is unusual in Psittacula, a genus containing mostly green species. The male had stronger colours than the female and possessed a reddish instead of black beak, but details of a mature male’s appearance are uncertain. Only two life drawings exist, both of a single specimen held in captivity in the 1770s. The species was scientifically described in 1872, with a female specimen as the holotype. A male, the last specimen recorded, was collected in 1875, and these two specimens are the only ones that exist today. The bird became scarce due to deforestation and perhaps hunting, but it was thought to have been finally wiped out by a series of cyclones and storms that hit Rodrigue in the late 19th century. Speculation about the possible survival of the species, though unfounded, lasted as late as 1967. It may have been ancestral to the endemic parakeets of nearby Mauritius and Réunion. It was very tame and was able to mimic speech, but may have fed on the nuts of the bois d’olive tree, along with leaves. A. Newton had tried to find a more descriptive name, perhaps based on colouration, but found it difficult. He refrained from publishing a figure of the female in his original description, though the journal Ibis had offered him the space.

He instead wanted to wait until a male specimen could be procured since he imagined it would be more attractive. The female is housed in the Cambridge University Museum as 18Psi67CZhC. A Newton published a plate of the male specimen, especially males, but he finally published a lamenting that no male specimens could be found. On 14 August 1875 William Vandorous, the naturalist and collector, shot a male Newton’s parakeset that had been rediscovered the previous year and confirmed his assumption that the male would turn out to be much more colourful than theFemale. It is thought the male was carrying a gun at the time, but was not carrying a firearm at that time. Some 17th-century accounts indicate that some members of the. species were green, which would suggest that both blue and green colour morphs occurred, but no definitive explanation exists for these reports. The specific name \”exsul\” is a reference to Leguat, who was exiled from France when he gave the first description of the bird in 1708 and was only mentioned a few times by other writers afterwards. The rose-ringed parakeET of the same genus is a close relative and probable ancestor of Newton’sParakeet. It became extinct in the mid-19th century due to hunting and deforestation, but a naturalist, Henry H Slater, had seen a live Newton’s Parakeet the year before, but not a live male.

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