Hypothetical species

A 1722 illustration by Jean-Baptiste Labat of three parrots on Guadeloupe. There are no remains of these parrots and so accurate taxonomic classification is impossible.

Several extinct species have been postulated, but owing to a lack of evidence they can only be regarded as hypothetical extinct species. They have caused confusion, as they may have been a separate species, a subspecies, or an introduced species.^[1]

Parrots

Populations of several parrot species were described mainly in the unscientific writings of early travelers to the Caribbean and Mascarene Islands, and subsequently scientifically described by several naturalists mainly in the twentieth century, with no more evidence than the earlier observations and without specimens, to have their names associated with the extinct species that they were postulating.^[1]

References

Extinction Phenomena Background extinction rate Coextinction De-extinction Ecological extinction Extinct in the wild Functional extinction Genetic pollution Lazarus taxon Local extinction Pseudoextinction Models Extinction vortex Causes Genetic erosion Habitat destruction Human overpopulation Muller's ratchet Mutational meltdown Overexploitation Theories and concepts Extinction debt Extinction risk from global warming Extinction threshold Field of Bullets Hypothetical species Latent extinction risk Extinction events Timeline of extinctions Ordovician–Silurian Late Devonian Permian–Triassic Triassic–Jurassic Cretaceous–Paleogene Quaternary Holocene Extinct species Lists of extinct species List of extinct animals List of extinct plants IUCN Red List extinct species Organizations International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN Species Survival Commission Voluntary Human Extinction Movement See also Decline in amphibian populations Human extinction Category     Portal     WikiProject     Commons