NEWTON’S PARAKEET (Alexandrinus exsul), extinct species of parrot endemic to forests on the Mascarene island of Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean. Rendered scarce by hunting and deforestation, the bird is thought to have become extinct after an onslaught of cyclones and storms that hit the island in the late nineteenth century.
Newton’s parakeet was sixteen-inches long, deriving about half its length from its sizable tailfeathers. The bird appeared similar to other species in the Psittacula genus, with the usual black collar. Its unique attributes included its blue plumage and yellow irises. Males were observed to have a dark line on their faces, which was less prominent in females. Observational accounts reported the parakeets having a red patch on the back of their wings. Early reports suggest the existence of green birds as well as blue; it is unknown if these were another coloration of the same species or a different but related, short-lived species.
Newton’s parakeet was first described by François Leguat, one of a group of eleven Huguenot men who settled on Rodrigues in 1691. The Huguenots were the first human inhabitants of Rodrigues, a near-paradise with a mild climate, fertile soil, and relatively harmless animals. In 1708 Leguat wrote that the men frequently consumed the parakeets, which were abundant on the island. Despite the birds’ small size, Leguat said they were delicious, “as good as young pigeons.” According to Leguat, the birds mainly consumed nuts from the bois d’olive tree. When the Huguenots decided to leave the island in search of female company, the men took a Newton’s parakeet with them to the island of Mauritius. The bird had learned to parrot French and Flemish phrases and thus became a form of entertainment.
Leguat’s account of Newton’s parakeet is one of only a few descriptions of the bird. In 1761 while visiting the Mascarene Islands, French mathematician Alexandre Pingré reported that Newton’s parakeet was scarce. In the years following Pingré’s visit, Rodrigues saw widespread deforestation and increased land use for free-roaming livestock, compromising its indigenous ecology. By the late nineteenth century Newton’s parakeet had become rare; the last record of a bird collected was in August 1875. It is widely believed that the species went extinct later that year, following “the worst cyclonic season of the 19th century.” In 1967 unfounded speculation by the American ornithologist James Greenway suggested that Newton’s parakeet could still survive on offshore islets, but others have determined that these landforms to be too small to support a bird population.
Only two specimens of Newton's parakeet remain at The Cambridge University Museum, one male and one female. The female specimen was sent by Sir Edward Newton, a colonial administrator in Mauritius, to his brother Alfred, who scientifically described the bird in 1872. The male, considered a juvenile because it lacks the characteristic red patch, also found its way into Alfred’s possession. Ship captain and Rodrigues resident William Vandorous shot the bird in 1875, then gave the specimen to assistant colonial secretary William James Caldwell to take back to England. During his three-month stay on the island, Caldwell had seen only a few Newton’s parakeets and failed to obtain one on his own, indicating the extreme rarity of the species by that point.
Today the only surviving parrot of the Mascarene Islands is the echo parakeet of Mauritius; the other seven species all went extinct during the island’s colonization. In 2015 a scientific study posited that the echo parakeet could be introduced to Rodrigues as a suitable ecological replacement for Newton’s parakeet because of the birds’ close evolutionary relationship. Such an introduction could also support the longevity of the echo parakeet, which has been threatened by extinction since the twentieth century.