Night parrot
| Night parrot | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Psittaciformes |
| Family: | Psittaculidae |
| Tribe: | Pezoporini |
| Genus: | Pezoporus |
| Species: | P. occidentalis |
| Binomial name | |
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Pezoporus occidentalis (Gould, 1861) |
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| Historical (light red) and recent sightings with year (red dots) | |
| Synonyms | |
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Geopsittacus occidentalis |
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Geopsittacus occidentalis
The night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) is a small parrot endemic to the continent of Australia. It is well known as being one of the most elusive and mysterious birds in the world, with no known sightings of the bird between 1912 and 1979, leading to speculation that it was extinct. Sightings since 1979 have been extremely rare and the bird's population size is unknown, though based on the paucity of records it is thought to number between 50 and 249 mature individuals. The first photographic and video evidence of a live individual was publicly confirmed in July 2013. After 17,000 hours in the field and 15 years of searching, wildlife photographer John Young captured several photos and a 17-second video of the bird in western Queensland. In August 2015, the capture of a live individual was announced on Australian media.
Ornithologist John Gould described the night parrot in 1861, from a specimen—the holotype—that was collected 13 km southeast of Mt Farmer, west of Lake Austin in Western Australia. Its specific epithet is Latin occidentalis "western". The species was originally placed within its own genus (Geopsittacus) by Gould, though consensus soon swung in favour of placing it in Pezoporus; James Murie dissected a specimen, observing that it was very similar in anatomy and plumage to the ground parrot. Gould had posited a relationship to the kakapo based on similarity of the plumage, however Murie concluded they were markedly different anatomically. Despite its close relationship with the ground parrot, its placement in the genus Pezoporus was uncertain, with some authorities leaving it in its own genus, as data on the night parrot was so limited. A 1994 molecular study using the of several parrot species confirmed the close relationship of the taxa and consensus for its placement in Pezoporus. It also revealed that the kakapo was not closely related to Pezoporus. Analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences in a 2011 study showed that the night parrot most likely diverged from the ancestor of the eastern and western ground parrots around 3.3 million years ago.
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Wikipedia