article for January 10, 2020

Article of the day for January 10, 2020 is Rodrigues parrot.
The Rodrigues parrot (Necropsittacus rodricanus) is an extinct species of parrot that was endemic to Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. Its relationships are unclear but it is classified with other Mascarene parrots in the tribe Psittaculini and may have been related to the broad-billed parrot of Mauritius. The Rodrigues parrot was green, and had a proportionally large head and beak along with a long tail. It was the largest parrot on Rodrigues, and had the largest head of any Mascarene parrot; it may have looked similar to the great-billed parrot. By the time it was discovered, it frequented and nested on islets off southern Rodrigues, where introduced rats were absent, and fed on the seeds of the Fernelia buxifolia shrub. The species is known from subfossil bones and from mentions in contemporary accounts. It was last mentioned in 1761, and probably became extinct soon after, perhaps due to a combination of predation by rats, deforestation, and hunting by humans.