Everyone knows the impressive Alexandrine parakeet that was named after Alexander the Great who introduced this bird to the nobles and kings of the Mediterranean and European countries. He exported it from South east Asia where it still lives and thrives. This was of course a forced exportation. But at some time long ago, the ancestor of the Alexandrine parakeet branched out by itself to the islands of the Indian Ocean.
This is an image of two parakeets you will never get to see for real. It's the Alexandrine parakeet (Psittacula eupatria) and its extinct cousin from the Seychelles: Psittacula wardi. Both birds in this watercolour are males.
Millions of years ago the range of islands in the Indian Ocean were very different from now. There was a ridge with several islands - approximately where the Maldives-Lakshadweep-Chagos Archipelago is - that created a kind of 'stepping stones' which made the radiation of parrots, and probably other birds like pigeons, possible. Most of the islands have now disappeared.
It seems that the South east Asia parakeets did well in flying across stretches of ocean because the parrots that lived on the Seychelles and the Mascarenes were all descendants of psittacula species.
The Mascarene parrots (P.exsul, P.eques and P.echo) are likely to be derived from the psittacula krameri form. The Seychelles parakeet was probably derived from the psittacula eupatria form which is more robust than the krameris.
So the Alexandrine parakeet and the Seychelles parakeet had a shared ancestor.
The Seychelles bird differs from all its extant cousins mostly by four characterics: it didn't have a rosy collar, its breast and abdomen feathers were greener and the black collar runs all round its cheeks and nape (its cousins only have a cheek stripe).
The Seychelles parakeet (40 cm) was a little smaller than the male Alexandrine parakeet (58 cm) and its wings and tail were shorter and broader.
The painting below is my ideal view of a beach: pristine white sands, cristal clear water and a beautiful parrot up in a palm tree. Unfortunately no one will ever get to see it because the Seychelles parakeet died out in the early years of the 20th century, persecuted for damage done to maize crops.
It was named after Swinburne Ward (1830-1897), British Civil Commissioner to the Seychelles in the 1860's.
I owe my thanks to mr. Lowe of the Cambridge University museum of Zoology who supplied reference material from their bird collection to work from and ornithologist D. Hoppe for providing details included in this blog.
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