Paradise Parrot

[LittleBudgie2005]

The Paradise Parrot... A Beautiful Bird Lost to Us Forever!

A beautiful and a unusual colourful medium-sized parrot, native to the grassy woodlands of Queensland and the border area of New South Wales. They make their nests near or on the ground in hollowed-out termite mounds or in other similar places, living in pairs or in small family groups. As far as it is known they fed only almost on grass seeds.

The Paradise Parrots plumage was extraordinarily colorful, even by todays parrot standards. A mixture of turquoise, aqua, scarlet, black and brown, and a tail almost the same length as it's body. It's hard to understand that such a beautiful bird spent almost all of it's time on the ground.

Over the years, extensive and sustained searches for reliable evidences that the Paradise Parrot was still alive failed. It is believe that the sudden decline in Paradise Parrot numbers was due to the possibilities of overgrazing, land clearing, changed fire regimes, hunting by bird collectors, and predation including mammals like cats. The Paradise Parrot become rare towards the end of the 19th century and was thought to be extinct by 1915.

The last confirmed sighting of the Paradise Parrot was on the 14th of November 1927 by Mr C. H. Jerrard in the upper Burnett river area of Southern Queensland. Altough unconfirmed sightings continue to filter through to the Queensland authorities, it is very doubtful that this beautiful bird is still alive in the wild or in captivity today.

Scientific Classification:-
Kingdom:- Animalia
Phylum:- Chordata
Class:- Aves
Order:- Psittaciformes
Family:- Psittacidae
Subfamily:- Platycercinae
Tribe:- Platycercini
Genus:- Psephotus
Species:- P. pulcherrimus


Binomial Name:-
Psephotus Pulcherrimus

References:-

A Guide to Neophema and Psephotus Grass Parrots, Their Mutations, Care and Breeding.
Online Wikipedia:- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Parrot

[Silvercloud]

They were such stunning parrots. It always makes me sad to see such wonderful creatures pushed to extinction by the thoughtlessness of people.

[LittleBudgie2005]

I know Jules... I still like to think somewhere out there, there are some still alive that we have not found and I hope are never found by people because after what we did we don't deserve to have this beautiful bird back in our lives...

Thats just my thoughts...

[Conure88]

i agree, i hope there out in some remote place in the bushland that we cant and hopefully never will find, just like the tazzy tiger. i still think theres some out there somewhere (or atleast i like to hope there is )

[Natenla]

I agree totally! And if anyone does find them, that they would leave them be to hopefully breed up a colony,
in the local cob &co museum here in Toowomba they have one tht has been taxidermied(?correct term?) and it is really sad to see it in that way. But then it is also good to see what it did look like.

[LittleBudgie2005]

I can understand where you are coming from Nat...

[Sam]

hmm
now, this is gona stir a bit of **** up..

the guy who taxidermed my princess parrot
had a stuffed paradise parrot and a stuffed golden shoulder X red vented blue bonnet and oh my... they looked very simmiular!!
so maybe the paradise parrot was a natural hybrid of the golden shoulder and blue bonnet that got isolated and killed off.

not saying that cross breeding these 2 species is good as both are quite rare in the wild
but just thought ide share this

[Matt]

I have done some research into this, as have many people before, apparently they ruled them out as a natural hybrid because they only paired together and never back to either of those species and the offspring were always identical to the paradise parents. But thats not to say that possibly the species originated as a hybrid many years back....that is possible I guess.

[Sam]

ive been templetd to try it
but i dont think its a good idea unless you have the heart to kill the excess young

[Matt]

I personally disagree with hybridising at all because we have enough problems with most captive gene pools as it is and no matter how many people say they do it for the pet market only I know that somewhere along the line those crossbred genes will end up infecting the pure genepool.

[Sam]

true.
thats why i never tried it
guess well have to wait and see if it magically pops back like the night parrot, highly doubt it though