Raiatea Parakeet (Cyanoramphus ulietanus)
Posted on 31 December, 1774 in Extinct
Year Last Seen:
1774
Comments:
This species was known from the island of Raiatea, French Polynesia, but it is now Extinct, probably as a result of habitat clearance or the action of invasive species. Two specimens were collected in the early 1770s and its extinction likely followed.
Habitat:
It was presumably a forest species, as this was the native vegetation of all of the Society Islands (Forshaw and Cooper 1989).
Causes:
The reasons for its extinction are unknown, but may have been the result of the clearance of the islands' forests, hunting, or predation by introduced species (Forshaw and Cooper 1989).
Distribution:
Cyanoramphus ulietanus is only known from two specimens from Raiatea, French Polynesia (Forshaw and Cooper 1989), likely collected on James Cook's voyage in 1773 or 1774, and now in Vienna (Austria) and Tring (U.K.) (Knox and Walters 1994, Hume 2017).