Red-headed macaw

Red-headed macaw
Restoration from 1907
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Psittaciformes
Family: Psittacidae
Subfamily: Psittacinae
Tribe: Arini
Genus: Ara
Species: A. erythrocephala
Binomial name
Ara erythrocephala
Gosse, 1847
Location of Jamaica

The red-headed macaw or Jamaican green-and-yellow macaw (Ara erythrocephala) may have been a species of parrot in the Psittacidae family that lived in Jamaica, but its existence is hypothetical. Rothschild based it on a description which a Mr. Hill had sent to Philip Henry Gosse:

Head red; neck, shoulders, and underparts of a light and lively green; the greater wing coverts and quills, blue; and the tail scarlet and blue on the upper surface, with the under plumage, both of wings and tail, a mass of intense orange yellow. The specimen here described was procured in the mountains of

Trelawny and St. Anne's by Mr. White, proprietor of the Oxford estate.[2]

Information

The macaw is extinct,[3] and it is conjectured to have been hunted to extinction in the early 19th century.[4] It was a close relative of the Cuban and Dominican macaws.[4] Its existence is considered dubious today.[5]

Habitat

The Ara erythrocephala could have been found in the mountains of Trelawney and St. Anne’s parishes, Jamaica.[6] It was described to have been found in the mountains, and presumably in forest as well.[3]

References

  1. ↑ BirdLife International 2012. Ara erythrocephala. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded 2012.
  2. ↑ Rothschild, Walter (1907): Extinct Birds (Online-Version)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Jamaican Green-and-yellow Macaw Ara erythrocephala". birdlife. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Jamaican Green-and-yellow Macaws (Ara erythrocephala)". BeautyOfBirds. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  5. ↑ Hume, J. P.; Walters, M. (2012). Extinct Birds. A & C Black. ISBN 140815725X.
  6. ↑ "Ara erythrocephala". The Extinction Website. Retrieved 22 January 2013.