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: 1927 (Kittelberger et al., 2024); 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:
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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.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).