Carolina Parakeet: A photo of a Carolina Parakeet researchers named "Coqueta" now living in captivity in Honduras.
Courtesy John Heldee, Cornell UniversityHuge news in the bird world today as the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology announced the re-discovery of a small isolated population of the "extinct" Carolina parakeet. This news comes hot on the heels of an announcement this month by National Geographic that another extinct species the Worchesters Buttonquail was photographed.

The news from Cornell, as detailed in this press release is a far greater story. The Carolina Parakeet was the only member of the parrot family found in the United States. It was thought they were extinct but a small non-migratory population was found in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve in the Mosquitia region of northeastern Honduras.

Full details will come out in an article in Science magazine this month but lead researcher Hubin Tubbs has said, "The bird we currently have in captivity, the individuals we have seen in the wild and the male we are tracking through telemetry are absolutely the Carolina Parakeet. We know from historical data that the Carolina Parakeet was migratory to this general region. There must have been individuals that did not migrate and they have formed a small but viable non-migratory population all this time."

Tags : ornithology, birds, extintion, news, april fool, april fools, biodiversity

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