Fossil Of A Giant Parrot Discovered In New Zealand
A giant parrot is not a find that is made every day. When a giant parrot was discovered in New Zealand , it certainly caused a lot of hype. Think that its Herculean strength has earned this new species of extinct bird the name of Heracles Inexpectatus . Read on to learn more.
Giant parrot discovered in New Zealand
The remains of this bird have been found in Central Otago, an area of New Zealand known for the presence of Miocene fossils. According to the researchers who made the discovery, this bird is around 19 million years old.
It is not the first time that fossils of impressive size belonging to extinct animals similar to the current ones have been found. For example, it is worth mentioning the case of the giant lemur of Madagascar, whose extinction probably has a lot to do with the presence of humans on the island of Madagascar.
In this case, this species of giant parrot resembles a bird not yet extinct: we are talking about the strange Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), a curious bird currently in serious danger of extinction. The kakapo weighs about three kilograms and, like the Heracles Inexpectatus , is unable to fly due to its weight, so it usually camouflages itself to escape its predators.
A spectacular bird
The story of this giant parrot is reminiscent of other large extinct birds that could not fly, as in the case of the strange elephant bird, an extinct species from Madagascar. In fact, you don’t have to go that far, as the concept of a giant bird is quite familiar in New Zealand. One example is the moa, a large ostrich-like bird.
Many of these giant birds experienced rapid extinction due to human action. In fact, they could not fly and were easy for native peoples to hunt. However, this theory seems unlikely when you think about our giant parrot. In fact, its fossil finds have been found in totally uninhabited areas of New Zealand, therefore far from human presence.
Even so, it becomes difficult to know many more characteristics of this large bird, like other species discovered through the fossil record. However, this is an unprecedented fact, as it has already been difficult to know about the ancestors of psittacines in the past.
Heracles Inexpectatus would belong to a group of birds similar to the current New Zealand parrots such as the kakapo and the kea, very different from the rest of the current psittacines, whose figure is more stylized and whose wings have more showy colors, not suitable for camouflage.
