Dominican Green-and-yellow Macaw

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Dominican Green-and-Yellow Macaw
Conservation status
Extinct (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Psittaciformes Family: Psittacidae Subfamily: Psittacinae Tribe: Arini Genus: Ara Species: A. atwoodi
Binomial name
Ara atwoodi Clark, 1908

The Dominican Green-and-Yellow Macaw (Ara atwoodi), also called the Dominican Macaw, is extinct, and only known through the writings of zoologist Thomas Atwood in 1791. Atwood wrote of a macaw from Dominica with green and yellow plumage and "a scarlet coloured fleshy substance from the ears to the root of the bill." ^[1] No known archeological remains are known of this bird, and it is thus widely considered an extinct hypothetically existent parrot. Atwood described a bird which was commonly captured for food and pets ^[2].

Clark, the zoologist and binomial authority on the parrot, initially included these macaws in Ara guadeloupensis. On discovering Atwood's writings, however, Clark listed them separately, considering them distinct ^[2]

The Dominican Macaw probably became extinct in the late 18th or early 19th century ^[3].

[edit] References

1. ^ Extinction: Dominican macaw. Accessed: 17 July 2007. URL: [1]
2. ^ ^{a b} BirdLife International 2004. Ara atwoodi. In: IUCN 2006. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. <[2]>. Accessed: 17 July 2007.
3. ^ ZipCode Zoo: Ara atwoodi. 2007. BayScience Foundatation. URL: [3]. Accessed: 17 July 2007