Red-headed macaw | |
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Hypothetical illustration, John Gerrard Keulemans, 1907 | |
Scientific classification ![]() (disputed) | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Psittaciformes |
Family: | Psittacidae |
Genus: | Ara |
Species: | A. erythrocephala |
Binomial name | |
Ara erythrocephala Gosse, 1847 | |
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Location of Jamaica |
The red-headed macaw or Jamaican green-and-yellow macaw (Ara erythrocephala) may have been a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae that lived in Jamaica, but its existence is hypothetical.
Rothschild based it on a description which a Mr. Hill had sent to Philip Henry Gosse:
Head red; neck, shoulders, and underparts of a light and lively green; the greater wing coverts and quills, blue; and the tail scarlet and blue on the upper surface, with the under plumage, both of wings and tail, a mass of intense orange yellow. The specimen here described was procured in the mountains of Trelawny and St. Anne's by Mr. White, proprietor of the Oxford estate. [2]
Ara erythrocephala could have been found in the mountains of Trelawney and St. Anne's Parishes, Jamaica. [3] It was described to have been found in the mountains, and presumably in forest as well. [4]
It is believed that the main reason for the macaw's extinction was overhunting. [5]
The macaw is extinct, [4] and it is conjectured to have been hunted to extinction in the early 19th century. [6] It was a close relative of the Cuban and Dominican macaws. [6] Its existence is considered dubious today. [7]