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The broad-billed parrot or raven parrot〔 (''Lophopsittacus mauritianus'') is a large extinct parrot in the family Psittaculidae. It was endemic to the Mascarene island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. It is unclear what other species it is most closely related to, but it has been classified as a member of the tribe Psittaculini, along with other Mascarene parrots. It had similarities with the Rodrigues parrot, and may have been closely related. The broad-billed parrot's head was large in proportion to its body, and there was a distinct crest of feathers on the front of the head. The bird had a very large beak, comparable in size to that of the hyacinth macaw, which would have enabled it to crack hard seeds. Subfossil bones indicate that the species exhibited greater sexual dimorphism in overall size and head size than any living parrot. The exact colouration is unknown, but a contemporary description indicates that it had multiple colours, including a blue head, and perhaps a red body and beak. It is believed to have been a weak flier, but not flightless. The broad-billed parrot was first referred to as the "Indian raven" in Dutch ships' journals from 1598 onwards. Only a few brief contemporary descriptions and three depictions are known. It was first scientifically described from a subfossil mandible in 1866, but this was not linked to the old accounts until the rediscovery of a detailed 1601 sketch that matched old descriptions. The bird became extinct in the 17th century owing to a combination of deforestation, predation by introduced invasive species, and probably hunting as well. ==Taxonomy== The earliest known descriptions of the broad-billed parrot were provided by Dutch travellers during the Second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia, led by Admiral Jacob Cornelis van Neck in 1598. They appear in reports published in 1601, which also contain the first illustration of the bird, along with the first of a dodo. The Dutch sailors who visited Mauritius categorised the broad-billed parrots separately from parrots, and referred to them as "Indische ravens" (translated as either "Indian ravens" or "Indian crows") without accompanying useful descriptions, which caused confusion when their journals were studied.〔 The English naturalist Hugh Edwin Strickland assigned the "Indian ravens" to the hornbill genus ''Buceros'', because he interpreted the projection on the forehead in a crude illustration as a horn.〔Check & Hume. (2008). pp. 23–25.〕 The Dutch and the French also referred to South American macaws as "Indian ravens" during the 17th century, and the name was used for hornbills by Dutch, French, and English speakers in the East Indies.〔Hume, J. P. (2007). pp. 4–17.〕 Sir Thomas Herbert referred to the broad-billed parrot as "Cacatoes" (cockatoo) in 1634, with the description "birds like Parrats, fierce and indomitable", but naturalists did not realise that he was referring to the same bird.〔 Even after subfossils of a parrot matching the descriptions were found, French zoologist Emile Oustalet argued that the "Indian raven" was a hornbill whose remains awaited discovery. France Staub was in favour of this idea as late as 1993. No remains of hornbills have ever been found on the island, and apart from an extinct species from New Caledonia, hornbills are not found on any oceanic islands.〔 The first known physical remain of the broad-billed parrot was a subfossil mandible collected along with the first batch of dodo bones found in the Mare aux Songes swamp. Richard Owen described the mandible in 1866 and identified it as belonging to a large parrot species, to which he gave the binomial name ''Psittacus mauritianus'' and the common name "broad-billed parrot".〔 This holotype specimen is now lost.〔 In 1868, shortly after the 1601 journal of the Dutch East India Company ship ''Gelderland'' had been rediscovered, Hermann Schlegel examined an unlabelled pen-and-ink sketch in it. Realising that the drawing, which is attributed to the artist Joris Joostensz Laerle, depicted the parrot described by Owen, Schlegel made the connection with the old journal descriptions. In 1875, because its bones and crest are significantly different from those of ''Psittacus'' species, Alfred Newton assigned it to its own genus, which he called ''Lophopsittacus''. ''Lophos'' is the Ancient Greek word for crest, referring here to the bird's frontal crest, and ''psittakos'' is Ancient Greek for parrot.〔 In 1973, based on remains collected by Louis Etienne Thirioux in the early 20th century, D. T. Holyoak placed a small subfossil Mauritian parrot in the same genus as the broad-billed parrot and named it ''Lophopsittacus bensoni''. In 2007, on the basis of a comparison of subfossils together with 17th and 18th century descriptions, Hume reclassified it as a species in the genus ''Psittacula'' and called it Thirioux's grey parrot.〔 Previously, James Greenway speculated that reports of grey Mauritian parrots referred to the broad-billed parrot. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Broad-billed parrot」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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