Martinique macaw

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Martinique macaw
Hypothetical 1907 illustration by Keulemans, based on Bouton's description
Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)[1][2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Psittaciformes
Family: Psittacidae
Genus: Ara
Species:
A. martinicus
Binomial name
Ara martinicus
(Rothschild, 1905)
Location of Martinique
Synonyms
List
  • Anodorhynchus martinicus Rothschild, 1905
  • Anodorhynchus coeruleus Rothschild, 1905
  • Ara erythrura Rothschild, 1907
  • Ara martinica

The Martinique macaw or orange-bellied macaw (Ara martinicus) is a

Walter Rothschild in 1905, based on a 1630s description of "blue and orange-yellow" macaws by Jacques Bouton [pt]. No other evidence of its existence is known, but it may have been identified in contemporary artwork. Some writers have suggested that the birds observed were actually blue-and-yellow macaws
(Ara ararauna). The "red-tailed blue-and-yellow macaw" (Ara erythrura), another species named by Rothschild in 1907 based on a 1658 account, is thought to be identical to the Martinique macaw, if either one ever existed.

The Martinique macaw is one of 13

extinct
macaw species that have been proposed to have lived in the Caribbean islands. Many of these species are now considered dubious because only three are known from physical remains, and there are no extant endemic macaws on the islands today. Macaws were frequently transported between the Caribbean islands and the South American mainland in both prehistoric and historic times, so it is impossible to know whether contemporaneous reports refer to imported or native species.

Taxonomy

Unidentified parrot supposedly from Jamaica, which may be the Martinique macaw, by Albin, mid-1700s

The Martinique macaw was

Extinct Birds, which also contained a restoration of the bird by the Dutch artist John Gerrard Keulemans.[4] The reassignment led to confusion as recently as 2001, when the American ornithologists Matthew Williams and David Steadman assumed the two names were meant to refer to separate birds.[5] The Martinique amazon (Amazona martinicana) of the same island, was also based solely on a contemporary description.[6]

What Bouton described is likely to remain a mystery, but various theories have been proposed.

dove.[5]

In the article that named the Martinique macaw, Rothschild also listed an "Anodorhynchus coeruleus", supposedly from

Birdlife International does not have an entry for the Martinique macaw, but it was mentioned in that of the Lesser Antillean macaw (which is considered Not Recognized) as possibly identical.[1][2]

Extinct Caribbean relatives

Edwards' Dodo, a 1626 painting by Savery, possibly showing this macaw on the right, and a Lesser Antillean macaw on the left

Macaws are known to have been transported between the Caribbean islands and from mainland South America both in historic times by Europeans and natives, and prehistoric times by

Saint Croix macaw (Ara autochthones) is only known from subfossils, and the Lesser Antillean macaw is known from subfossils and reports.[12][14] No endemic Caribbean macaws remain today; they were likely driven to extinction by humans in historic and prehistoric times.[6]

1628 painting by Savery, showing a similar macaw on the far left

Many hypothetical extinct macaws were based only on contemporaneous accounts, but these species are considered dubious today. Several of them were named in the early 20th century by Rothschild, who had a tendency to name species based on little tangible evidence.

Dominica island.[4] The violet macaw (Anodorhynchus purpurascens), which was named for accounts of blue parrots supposedly from Guadeloupe, is now thought to have been based on references to the Guadeloupe amazon (Amazona violacea).[15]

Other species of macaw have also been mentioned, but many never received

Storrs Olson and Edgar Maíz López doubted the validity of the hypothetical macaws in 2008, and that all Antillean islands once had endemic species, but wrote that the island of Hispaniola would be the most likely place for another macaw species to have existed because of the large land area, though no descriptions or remains of such are known. They wrote that such a species could have been driven to extinction before the arrival of Europeans.[12] The identity and distribution of indigenous macaws in the Caribbean is only likely to be further resolved through palaeontological discoveries and examination of contemporary reports and artwork.[5][16]

Contemporary descriptions

Keulemans' hypothetical 1907 restoration of Ara erythrura

Bouton's 1630s description of the Martinique macaw is reproduced below, translated from French:

The macaws are two or three times as large as the other parrots, [and] have a plumage much different in colour: those that I have seen have their plumage blue and orange-yellow (saffron). They also learn to talk and have a good body.[4][10]

A translation of the 1658 French description of "Ara erythrura" by de Rochefort follows below:

Among them are some which have the head, the upper side of the neck, and the back of a satiny sky blue; the underside of the neck, the belly, and undersurface of the wings, yellow, and the tail entirely red.[4]

In spite of the fact that the tail of "Ara erythrura" was described as entirely red, the plate in Rothschild's Extinct Birds showed a blue tip, which the American ornithologist Charles Wallace Richmond complained about in his review of the book.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b Birdlife International (2016). "Ara guadeloupensis". www.birdlife.org. Retrieved January 10, 2016.
  2. ^ a b IUCN Red List (2013). "Ara guadeloupensis". www.iucnredlist.org. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013. Retrieved January 10, 2016.
  3. ^ Rothschild, W. (1905). "Notes on extinct parrots from the West Indies". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 16: 13–15.
  4. ^ a b c d e Rothschild, W. (1907). Extinct Birds. London: Hutchinson & Co. pp. 53–54.
  5. ^ a b c d Wiley, J. W.; Kirwan, G. M. (2013). "The extinct macaws of the West Indies, with special reference to Cuban Macaw Ara tricolor". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 133: 125–156.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8493-2001-9. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2014-02-07.
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-670-81787-0
    .
  8. ^
    doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1906.tb07813.x
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-0-486-21869-4
    .
  10. ^ a b "Species Info: Ara martinica". The Extinction Website (2008). Archived from the original on 2 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4081-5725-1
    .
  12. ^
    S2CID 54593515
    .
  13. doi:10.3366/anh.2010.0016
    .
  14. S2CID 254158608
    .
  15. ^ Lenoble, A. (2015). "The Violet Macaw (Anodorhynchus purpurascens Rothschild, 1905) did not exist". Journal of Caribbean Ornithology. 28: 17–21.
  16. S2CID 87386694
    .
  17. JSTOR 4070727
    .
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