Mascarene parrot

In 2018, the American ornithologist Kaiya L. Provost and colleagues also found the Mascarene parrot (using the sequence of Podsiadlowski and colleagues) and Tanygnathus species to group within Psittacula, and stated this argued for breaking up the latter genus.^[19] To solve the issue that the genera Mascarinus, Tanygnathus, as well as Psittinus fell within the genus Psittacula according to genetic studies, making that genus paraphyletic (an unnatural grouping), the German ornithologist Michael P. Braun and colleagues proposed in 2019 that Psittacula should be split into multiple genera, thereby retaining Mascarinus.^[20]

A 2022 genetic study by the Brazilian ornithologist Alexandre P. Selvatti and colleagues confirmed the earlier studies in regard to the relationship between Psittacula, the Mascarene parrot, and Tanygnathus. They suggested that Psittaculinae originated in the Australo–Pacific region (then part of the supercontinent Gondwana), and that the ancestral population of the Psittacula–Mascarinus lineage were the first psittaculines in Africa by the late Miocene (8–5 million years ago), and colonised the Mascarenes from there.^[21]

The Mascarene parrot was 35 cm (14 in) in length. The wing was 211 mm (8.3 in), the tail 144–152 mm (5.7–6.0 in), the culmen 32–36 mm (1.3–1.4 in), and the tarsus 22–24 mm (0.87–0.94 in).^[22] It had a large red bill and moderately long, rounded tail feathers. It had a black velvet-like facial mask on the front part of the head. There are several discrepancies in how the colour of the body, wings, tail feathers and the head have historically been described and depicted.^[2] In 1674, Dubois described live specimens as being "petit-gris" which is the colour of the dark phase of the red squirrel.^[23] According to Hume, this colour is a dark blackish grey or brown.^[2]

In 1760, Brisson published the following description based on a captive bird (which may have been the specimen now preserved in Paris):

Upperparts of head and neck clear (ash) grey. Back, rump, underparts of neck, breast, belly, sides, legs, scapular feathers, upper coverts of tail very-dark (ash) grey. Wing feathers of the same colour. The tail is composed of 12 feathers: the two median ones are also very-dark (ash) grey. All the lateral ones are of the same colour, except that they have a little white at their base. The eyes are surrounded by a naked skin, bright red. Pupil black, iris red. The base of the superior half of the beak is also surrounded by a red naked skin in which the nostrils are placed. Beak similarly red. Legs pale flesh. Claws grey-brown. I am unaware from which country it is found. I have seen it living in Paris.^[2]

Instead of grey, several later authors described the body as brown and the head as bluish lilac, based on stuffed specimens, and this has become the "orthodox image" of the bird. Live birds were never described with these colours. Hume proposed that this colouration is an artifact of the taxidermy specimens having aged and being exposed to light, which can turn grey and black to brown. Such a transformation has also turned an aberrant dickcissel (Spiza americana) specimen (sometimes considered a distinct species, "Townsend's dickcissel"), from grey to brown.^[2] The two extant Mascarene parrot specimens also differ from each other in colouration. The Paris specimen has a greyish-blue head and a brown body, paler on the underparts. Its tail and wing feathers were severely damaged by sulphuric acid in an attempt at fumigation in the 1790s. The Vienna specimen is a pale brown on the head and body overall, with an irregular distribution of white feathers on the tail, back, and wings.^[24] In 2017 the Australian ornithologist Joseph M. Forshaw found it hard to accept that all the illustrations that showed the colour as brown were wrong; he found it more likely that the brown would have merely faded in intensity rather than from grey to brown. He stated that by the time the earliest known illustrations of the bird were made, it is unlikely they would already have faded to brown because of exposure to light. He also doubted that poor diet of caged birds would have consistently turned them brown, and instead accepted the "orthodox image" of the bird as brown.^[25]

Confusion over the colouration of the Mascarene parrot has also been furthered by a plate by French engraver François-Nicolas Martinet in Buffon's 1779 Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux, the first coloured illustration of this species. It shows the bird as brown with a purplish head, and the strength of these colours differs considerably between copies, a result of having been hand-coloured by many different artists who worked under Martinet in his workshop. Across these copies, the body ranges from chestnut brown to greyish chocolate, the tail from light grey to blackish grey-brown, and the head from bluish grey to dove-grey. The plate also lacks two dark central tail feathers without white bases, a feature described by Brisson, and these features have been repeated by subsequent artists. Martinet's illustration and Buffon's description were perhaps based on the Paris specimen.^[2]

In 1879, Forbes stated the cere was covered by feathers which concealed the nostrils.^[6] This contradicts other accounts that mention that the nostrils were surrounded by red skin. Forbes based his description on the Paris specimen which had its skull and mandible removed for study by the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards prior to 1866. This may have led to the distortion of the shape of the head and nostrils as indicated by the illustration in Forbes' article.^{[2] [26]} The skull of the Mascarene parrot was moderately flattened from top to bottom, the diameter of the nares (bony nostril) was larger than the width of the internal septum (the wall between the nostrils), and there was an indistinct notch on the upper edge of the rostrum (bony beak). The mandibular fenestra (opening at the side of the mandible) was absent, and the back end of the mandibular symphysis (where the two halves of the lower jaw connected) was broadly oval, the angulus mandibulae (the lower margin at the back of the mandible) was flattened instead of angled, and the symphysis was sharply angled downward.^[2]

Very little is known about the Mascarene parrot in life.^[7] Since several specimens were kept alive in captivity, it was probably not a specialised feeder.^[27] That the Vienna specimen was partially white may have been the result of food deficiency during a long period in captivity; the clipped primary wing feathers indicate it was caged. Little was known about parrot-diet in the 1700s, and the Vienna specimen may not have received enough of the amino acid tyrosine through its food, which it would have needed for melanin synthesis. In other parrots, this would have resulted in orange instead of white colour in the affected feathers, due to the presence of the pigment psittacin, but Coracopsis parrots and the Mascarene parrot are the only parrots that lack this pigment. The specimen has also been described as "partially albinistic" at times, though true albinism (lack of the enzyme tyrosinase) can by definition never only be partial.^[24]

In 1705, the French cartographer Jean Feuilley gave a description of the parrots of Réunion and their ecology which indicates that they fattened themselves seasonally:

There are several sorts of parrot, of different sizes and colours. Some are the size of a hen, grey, the beak red [Mascarene parrot]; others the same colour the size of a pigeon [Mascarene grey parakeet], and yet others, smaller, are green [Réunion parakeet]. There are great quantities, especially in the Sainte-Suzanne area and on the mountainsides. They are very good to eat, especially when they are fat which is from the month of June until the month of September because at that time the trees produce a certain wild seed that these birds eat.^[7]

The Mascarene parrot may have once inhabited Mauritius as well based on a 17th-century account by the English traveller Peter Mundy which mentioned "russet parrots".^[28] This is a possibility, since Réunion and Mauritius do share some types of animals, but no fossil evidence has yet been discovered.^[2]

Many other endemic species of Réunion became extinct after the arrival of humans and the resulting disruption of the island's ecosystem. The Mascarene parrot lived alongside other recently extinct birds such as the hoopoe starling, the Réunion ibis, the Réunion parakeet, the Mascarene grey parakeet, the Réunion swamphen, the Réunion scops owl, the Réunion night heron, and the Réunion pink pigeon. Extinct Réunion reptiles include the Réunion giant tortoise and an undescribed Leiolopisma skink. The small Mauritian flying fox and the snail Tropidophora carinata lived on Réunion and Mauritius but vanished from both islands.^[29]

Of the eight or so parrot species endemic to the Mascarenes, only the echo parakeet (Psittacula echo) of Mauritius has survived. The others probably all became extinct due to a combination of excessive hunting and deforestation. The cause and date of extinction for the Mascarene parrot itself is uncertain.^[2] In 1834, the German zoologist Carl Wilhelm Hahn published an often-cited account of a live Mascarene parrot in the possession of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. The bird must have been very old at the time, and Hahn claimed an accompanying illustration was drawn after this specimen.^[30] The IUCN Red List accepts the 1834 account as the last mention of a live specimen.^[1]

The veracity of Hahn's claim was questioned as early as 1876, and the illustration appears to be plagiarised from the plate by François-Nicolas Martinet which was published at least 50 years earlier. After King Maximilian died in 1825, his collection was auctioned off, but no Mascarene parrot was mentioned in the inventory of species. Hahn did not mention the date in which he actually saw the bird which could have been long before 1834. The fact that Martinet's image was copied and that no mounted specimen exists (though such a rare bird would probably have been preserved) makes Hahn's account dubious.^[30] He may instead have based his account on other sources or even hearsay.^[2]

If Hahn's account is disregarded, the Mascarene parrot probably became extinct prior to 1800. The last account of wild specimens on Réunion is from the 1770s.^[2] It is thought that the Mascarene parrot went extinct in the wild while captive specimens still survived in Europe, since specimens are known to have lived there after the last mention of wild birds. In the 1790s, French naturalist François Levaillant stated that the bird was rare and that he had seen three of them in France.^[7]

One of the last definite accounts of live specimens is the following 1784 description by Mauduyt based on captive birds:

The Mascarin is found at Ile Bourbon [Réunion]; I have seen several alive in Paris, they were rather gentle birds; they had in their favour only that the red beak contrasted agreeably with the dark background of their plumage; they had not learnt to talk.^[2]

Contrary to Feuilley's claims, Dubois mentioned that the Mascarene parrot was not edible which may have led to Réunion visitors mostly ignoring it.^[31] It was the last of the indigenous parrots of Réunion to become extinct.^[7] The only endemic bird species on Réunion that disappeared after the Mascarene parrot was the hoopoe starling in the mid-19th century.^[23]

• Cheke, A. S.; Hume, J. P. (2008). Lost Land of the Dodo: an Ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues. New Haven and London: T. & A. D. Poyser. ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4.

• Media related to Mascarinus mascarinus at Wikimedia Commons
• Data related to Psittacoidea at Wikispecies