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Psephotellus pulcherrimus Gould, 1845:115

Paradise parrot, Beautiful parakeet, Scarlet-shouldered parrot

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

Now treated under the genus Psephotellus (Forshaw & Knight, 2017).

 

Synonym/s: Platycerus pulcherrimus Gould, 1845:115; Platycercus pulcherrimus Gould, 1845:115; Psephotus pulcherrimus dubius Mathews, 1915:128; Psephotus pulcherrimus Gould, 1845:115

 

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: November 1928 (Olsen, 2007)

IUCN RedList status: Extinct

 

Now considered lost, the species was rediscovered in 1918 after being feared extinct. Unconfirmed records of this species post-1928 have been reported, many mentioned by (Olsen, 2007). Five birds were reported in 1990 (Kiernan, 1993), regarded by (Olsen, 2007) as dubious. John Young, who located one the first post-1990 living Night parrots (Pezoporus occidentalis), claims to have collected many eggs of the Paradise parrot during the 1970's (Olsen, 2007; chapter 12). However, he has a history of making dubious claims and wasting other people's time and government resources (Ibid.).

 

---

"A few years ago I was speaking to an aviculturalist who told me that altough there are no pure PPs in captivity there are some very motley Golden-shouldereds and Hooded Parrots around in captivity, and that this has recently been recognised as a relic of captive PPs having interbred with GSs and Hoodeds earlier this century.

It is just conceiveable that if a breeder gathered a number of these bird together and bred them, selecting for the PP plumage traits, that a population of 'reassembled' PPs might be bred, and then might conceivably be reintroduced into the wild."

Source: http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/birding-aus/1998-01/msg00277.html

 

Distribution

Queensland (& New South Wales?), Australia

 

Biology & Ecology

It has been suggested that Psephotus pulcherrimus may have had a symbiotic relationship with a moth of the genus Trisyntopa (Edwards et al. 2007; Olsen, 2007; Cooney, 2010). Visiting known former termite nests of P. pulcherrimus may uncover remains of this moth whose former existence is implied by analogy with the other members of the genus Psephotus who each have a symbiotic relationship with a unique moth species of the genus Trisyntopa.

 

 

Hypodigm

Specimens in museum collections known to the author:

 

MCZ 74281 (adult male)

GLAHM 108080 (see [url=http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch/DetailedResults.fwx?collection=zoology&SearchTerm=108080&reqMethod=Link]here[/url])

[url=http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47]RMNH 110.071[/url] (male)

[url=http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47]RMNH 110.072[/url] (male)

[url=http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47]RMNH 110.073[/url] (female)

[url=http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47]RMNH 110.074[/url] (female)

[url=http://nlbif.eti.uva.nl/naturalis/detail.php?lang=uk&id=47]RMNH 110.113[/url] (female, skeleton only)

 

Rejected specimens

An egg collected in 1967 (Grealy et al., 2021)

 

Media

Above: illustration by Alexander Francis Lydon, engraved by Benjamin Fawcett. Published in (Greene & Dutton, 1884).

 

 

Above: illustration by Roland Green, published in (Mathews, 1916-1917:pl.313).

 

References

Original Scientific Description:

Gould, John. (1845). On a New Species of Platycerus. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 15: 114-115. [p. 114 according to (Gould, 1848)]

 

Other references:

Anmarkrud, Jarl Andreas and Lifjeld, Jan T. (2017). Complete mitochondrial genomes of eleven extinct or possibly extinct bird species. Molecular Ecology Resources 17(2): 334-341. [Abstract]

Anonymous. (1927). Minutes of the twenty-fifth annual congress of the R.A.O.U. Emu. 26:162-170.

Anonymous. (1964). List of rare birds, including those thought to be so but of which detailed information is still lacking. IUCN Bulletin 10(Special Supplement): 4 pp.

Ashby, E. (1924). Notes on extinct or rare Australian birds, with suggestions as to some of the causes of their disappearance. Emu 23: 178-183.

Barnard, C. A. (1917). Bird life as affected by drought. Emu. 16:234-236.

Barnard, C. A. (1925). A review of the birdlife on Coomooboolaroo Station, Duaringa District, Queensland, during the past fifty years. Emu 24: 252-265.

Barnes, C. and Zillman, E. (2007). The Lost World of the Paradise Parrot: an eye-witness account of a Paradise Parrot. Wingspan 17(1): 45.

Barrett, Charles. (1949). Parrots of Australasia. Melbourne: N. H. Seward Pty. Ltd. 111 pp. [p. 68, 70]

BirdLife International. (2012). Psephotus pulcherrimus. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 08 December 2012.

BirdLife International. (2016). Psephotellus pulcherrimus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22685156A93061054. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22685156A93061054.en. Accessed on 30 June 2022.

Blakers, M., Davies, S. J. J. F. and Reilly, P. N. (1984). The Atlas of Australian Birds. Melbourne: RAOU and Melbourne University Press.

Broinowski, Gracius J. (1890). The Birds of Australia, Comprising Three Hundred Full-Page Illustrations, With A Descriptive Account of the Life and Characteristic Habits Of Over Seven Hundred Species. Vol. 3. Charles Stuart & Co.

Brooks, T. 2000. Extinct species. In: BirdLife International (ed.), Threatened Birds of the World, pp. 701-708. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona and Cambridge, U.K.

Campbell, Archibald J. (1900). Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds. Sheffield, Private. [relevant reference?]

Campbell, Archibald J. (1901). Nests and eggs of Australian birds, including the geographical distribution of the species and popular observations thereon. Part 2. Sheffield: privately published. [pp. 645-646, pl. ?]

Campbell, A. J. (1915). Missing birds. Emu. 14: 167-168.

Carter, M. (1992). In quest of paradise. Wingspan 8: 8.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1922a). Mateship with Birds. Melbourne: Whitcombe and Tombs.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1922b). The "lost" Paradise Parrot. Emu 22(1): 4-17.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1924). Seeking rare parrots. Emu 24(1): 25-32.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1936). Various bird problems. Emu. 35:317-323.

Chisholm, A. H. (1938). John Gilbert and some letters to Gould. Emu 38: 186-199.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1945). Birds of the Gilbert diary, Part 2. Emu. 44: 183-200.

Chisholm, Alexander (Alec) H. (1955). A Naturalist Stalked an Elusive Bird. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July, p. 130.

Christidis, L. and Boles, Walter E. (1994). The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and its Territories. Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union Monograph 2. Melbourne, Victoria: Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union.

Christidis, L. and Boles, W.E. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.

Cichy, Miranda. (2022). Paradise Lost: Encounters with Australia’s Extinct Parrot. Museum & Society 20(1): 89-103 .

Collar, Nigel J. (1997). Family Psittacidae (parrots). In J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott & J. Sargatal (Eds) Handbook of the Birds of the World, Vol. 4 (pp. 280-477). Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.

Collar, N. J.; Crosby, M. J.; Stattersfield, A. J. 1994. Birds to watch 2: the world list of threatened birds. BirdLife International, Cambridge, U.K.

Condon, H. T. (1941). The Australian broadtailed parrots (subfamily Platycercinae). Rec. S. Aust. Mus. 7: 117-144.

Condon, H. T. (1975). Checklist of the Birds of Australia. Part 1. Non-passerines. Melbourne: Royal Australian Ornithologists Union. xx + 311 pp.

Cooney, S. J. N. (2010). ANU-Digital Collections: Ecological Associations of the Hooded Parrot (Psephotus dissimilis). Ph.D thesis submitted April, 2009.

Crew, G. and Wilson, M. (2003). I Said Nothing: The Extinction of the Paradise Parrot. South Melbourne: Lothian. [a children's book]

De Ross, L. (1975). Keeping Parrots in Australian Aviaries. Melbourne: Lansdowne. [claims that all three ant-hill parrots belong to the same species]

del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

del Hoyo, J., et al. (2020) Birds of the World. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA

Dionysius, B. (2004). From the Extinction Sonnets: Giant Galapagos Tortoise; Paradise Parrot. Meanjin, 63(1), 234.

Edwards, W. H. (1922). The "lost" Paradise Parrot. Emu 22: 154.

Edwards, E. D., Cooney, S. J. N., Olsen, P. D. and Garnett, S. T. (2007). A new species of Trisyntopa Lower (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae) associated with the nests of the hooded parrot (Psephotus dissimilis, Psittacidae) in the Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Entomology 46: 276-280. [Abstract]

Fisher, Clem T. (1985). From John Gilbert to John Gould. Australian Zoologist 22(1): 5-14. https://doi.org/10.7882/AZ.1985.002

Fisher, C. T. (1986). A type specimen of the Paradise Parrot Psephotus pulcherrimus (Gould, 1845) in the Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool, England. Australian Zoologist 22(3): 10-12.

Fisher, Clemency T. and Warr, F. E. (2003). Museums on paper: library & manuscript resources. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 123A: 136-164.

Forshaw, Joseph M. (1981). Australian Parrots. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.

Forshaw, Joseph M. (1989). Parrots of the World, 3rd edition. London: Blanford / Melbourne: Lansdowne Editions.

Forshaw, Joseph M. and Cooper, William T. (2002). Australian Parrots, 3rd edition. Robina, Queensland: Alexander Editions.

Forshaw, Joseph M. and Knight, Frank. (2017). Vanished and Vanishing Parrots: Profiling Extinct and Endangered Species. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing.

Frith, H. J. (1979). Wildlife Conservation, revised edition. Angus & Robertson. xiv + 416 pp. [pl. 59 (between p. 258/259), p. 295, p. 308-309 (species account)]

Fuller, Errol. (1988). Extinct Birds. New York: Facts on File Publications. 256 pp.

Fuller, Errol. (2013). Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Garnett, Stephen. (1992). Threatened and Extinct Birds of Australia. RAOU Report Number 82. Moonee Ponds, Australia: Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union and Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service. 212 pp.

Garnett, S. T. and Crowley, G. M. (2000). The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2000. Canberra, ACT: Environment Australia & Birds Australia.

Ghiraldi, Luca and Aimassi, Giorgio. (2019). Extinct and endangered (‘E&E’) birds in the ornithological collection of the Museum of Zoology of Torino University, Italy. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 139(1): 28-45.

Grealy, Alicia et al. (2021). Genetic barcoding of museum eggshell improves data integrity of avian biological collections. Scientific Reports 11: 1605.

Greene, W. T. and Dutton, Rev. F. G. (1884). Parrots in Captivity, volume 2. London: George Bell and Sons. 402 pp. [pp. 29-32]

Gould, John. (1848). The Birds of Australia. Vol. 5. London: Self published.

Groen, H. (1966). Australian Parakeets: Their Maintenance and Breeding in Europe. Haren: Self published.

Higgins, P. J. (ed.). (1999). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Holmes, Branden. (2021). What's Lost and What Remains: The Sixth Extinction in 100 Accounts (eBook). Self published.

Hoser, Raymond T. (1991). Endangered Animals of Australia. Mosman, NSW: Pierson & Co. 240 pp. [pp. 151]

Howes, C. A. (1969). A survey of extinct and nearly extinct birds in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists Club 89(4): 89-92.

Hume, Julian Pender and Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. 544 pp.

Irby, F. M. (1927a). Travelling Paradise Parrots. Emu. 26: 236.

Irby, F. M. (1927b). Further notes on rare parrots. Emu. 27: 13-16.

Irestedt, Martin et al. (2019). No Signs of Genetic Erosion in a 19th Century Genome of the Extinct Paradise Parrot (Psephotellus pulcherrimus). Diversity 11: 58. [automatic download]

Isles, Andrew. (1997). The Paradise Parrot: 70 Years on. Eclectus 3: 24-26.

Jerrard, Cyril Henry Harvey. (1922). Stalking the Rare Paradise Parrot with a Camera. The Queenslander, Saturday, 12 August, p. 25.

Jerrard, Cyril Henry Harvey. (2008). Historical article - Paradise Parrot. Australian Field Ornithology 25(2): 59-68. [prior to its publication in a scientific journal it was reproduced on the National Library of Australia's website here]

Joseph, L. (1988). A review of the conservation status of Australian parrots in 1987. Biological Conservation 46: 261-280.

Jouanin, Christian. (1962). Inventaire des oiseaux éteints ou en voie d’extinction conservés au Muséum de Paris. Terre et Vie 109: 275-301.

Julian, R. (1989). Paradise Parrot. Australian Natural History 23(1): 78-79.

Kiernan, Chris. (1992). The Decline of the Paradise Parrot, Parts 1 and 2. A special Topic (Third Year) Report, Griffith University, Brisbane.

Kiernan, Chris. (1993). Bird to watch: paradise on earth? Wingspan 11(3): 24-25.

Knox, Alan G. and Walters, Michael P. (1994). Extinct and endangered birds in the collections of The Natural History Museum. British Ornithologists' Club Occasional Publications 1: 1-292. [pp. 146-147]

Lendon, A. H. (1973). In: Neville, W. Cayley's Australian Parrots in Field and Aviary. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.

Lowe, Willoughby P. (1947). Specimens of Psephotus pulcherrimus. Ibis 89(4): 663.

Mathews, Gregory M. (1915). Additions and corrections to my List of the Birds of Australia. Austral Avian Rec. 2: 123-133.

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Mathews, Gregory M. (1920). The Birds of Australia, suppl. No. 1: Check List of the Birds of Australia: Orders Casuariiformes to Menuriformes. London: Witherby & Co. [p. 90]

McGregor, Russell. (2021a). Alec Chisholm and the extinction of the Paradise Parrot. Historical Records of Australian Science. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR20019

McGregor, Russell. (2021b). The tragedy of the Paradise Parrot. Arcadia, Summer (27).

Olsen, Penny. (2005). Mr Gilbert's beautiful Parakeet. National Library of Australia News 15(6): 3-6.

Olsen, Penny. (2007). Glimpses of Paradise: The Quest for the Beautiful Parrakeet. Canberra, ACT: National Library of Australia.

Opit, Gary. (In Press, 2016). Citizen Science and Cryptozoology, data received from listeners during 18 years of wildlife talkback on ABC North Coast New South Wales Local Radio. Australian Zoologist. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7882/AZ.2016.008 [Abstract]

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Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M., Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]

Schmidt, M. (1986). Specific notes on the Paradise Parrot. Bird Keeping in Australia 29: 50-51.

Schodde, R. and Mason, I. J. (eds.). (1997). Zoological Catalogue of Australia, [volume] 37.2. Aves (Columbidae to Coraciidae). Melbourne: CSIRO. 452 pp. [Google Preview]

Schodde, R. and Tidemann, S. C. (1986). Complete Book of Australian Birds. Sydney: Reader's Digest.

Scott, Peter (ed.). (1965). Preliminary List of Rare Mammals and Birds, pp. 155-237. In: The Launching of a New Ark. First Report of the President and Trustees of the World Wildlife Fund. An International Foundation for saving the world's wildlife and wild places 1961-1964. London: Collins.

Sindel, Stan and Gill, James. (1996). Australian grass parrakeets (the Psephotus and Northiella genera), [volume two]. Austral: Singil Press. 205 pp.

Storr, G. M. (1973). List of Queensland Birds. Western Australian Museum Special Publication No. 5. Perth: Western Australian Museum. 177 pp.

Storr, G. M. (1984). Revised List of Queensland Birds. Records of the Western Australian Museum, Supplement 19: 1-189.

Tavistock, Marquess of. (1918). Threatened Extermination of Grass Parrakeets. Avicultural Magazine, series 4, 2(3): 64-65.

Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

Vernon, D. P. (1971). Paradise Parrot, Psephotus pulcherrimus: Notes on Australian Holdings, Distribution and Underwing Pattern. Sunbird 2(2): 17-25. [Abstract]

Welch, Jade. (2014). Remnants of Paradise. Blogpost on Jade Welch Birds, Friday, 14 November.

Williams, K. (1977). 'Brinepool' the beautiful. Qld. Ornithol. Soc. Newsl. 8: 10.

Woinarski, John C. Z., Braby, M. F., Burbidge, A. A., Coates, D., Garnett, S. T., Fensham, R. J., Legge, S. M., McKenzie, N. L., Silcock, J L. and Murphy, B. P. (2019). Reading the black book: The number, timing, distribution and causes of listed extinctions in Australia. Biological Conservation 239: 108261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108261

Woinarski, John C. Z., Legge, Sarah M. and Garnett, Stephen T. (2024). Extinct Australian birds: numbers, characteristics, lessons and prospects. Emu 124(1): 8-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2240345

Zillmann, Eric. (2013). Historical article: Recollections of the last known authentic sightings of the Paradise Parrot. Australian Field Ornithology 30(3): 166-168. [Abstract]

http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/wildlife-ecosystems/wildlife/threatened_plants_and_animals/extinct_in_the_wild/paradise_parrot.html

http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=723

http://www.andrewisles.com/assets/Uploads/Reference-Documents/GlimpsesofparadiseReview.pdf

http://www.andrewisles.com/assets/Uploads/Reference-Documents/ClemFisherReviewGlimpses.pdf

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/name/Psephotus_pulcherrimus

https://cites.org/sites/default/files/common/com/ac/26/E26-20i.pdf

http://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/9209/psephotus-pulcherrimus-paradise-parrot

 

NB: A much more extensive bibliography than that given here can be found in (Olsen, 2007:235-254).