Extinct Carolina parakeet gives glimpse into evolution of American parrots

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2012/sep/19/1


Carolina parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis, hand-colored engraving (1825).
John James Audubon (author & artist, 1785-1851). This image is in the Public Domain.

The Carolina parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis (pictured above), was the only endemic parrot in the United States. It had one of the most northerly ranges of any parrot species, even occurring along the southern shores of Lake Ontario (see range map, right; doi:10.2173/bna.667). But European settlers quickly persecuted this colourful and widespread parrot out of existence for food, feathers, "sport" and to protect their crops. By the early 1920s, this common parrot was gone for ever.

So efficient was the extermination campaign that the Carolina parakeet disappeared before we knew much about its ecology and behaviours. The little that we do know about these iconic birds' life history and historical distribution comes from modern scientists, ornithologists and historians stitching together brief snippets penned by 19th century naturalists with personal observations reported by the few still-living people who knew this bird.

Also mysterious are the precise evolutionary relationships between the Carolina parakeet and other neotropical parrot species. Although this parrot is the only member of its genus, Conuropsis, its long, pointed tail and wings, feathered cheeks and lores, the combination of yellow and orange head plumage and blue feathers in its wings, and its comparatively broad and heavy bill closely resemble these same features in several parrots in the genus Aratinga, leading most authorities to argue they are close relatives.

But other authorities have pointed out that the Carolina parakeet's fully feathered ceres, that fleshy area surrounding its nostrils, is a trait shared with the monk parakeet, Myiopsitta monachus (doi:10.2173/bna.667), a parrot that still lives in temperate South America. For this reason, it has been proposed that the Carolina and monk parakeets may be sister species – each other's closest relatives.