The Biggest Parrot

Everyone knows I love birds; from hens and raptors to parrots and wrens, and everything in between. When we were in New Zealand a couple of years back we were fortunate to see the Kea in the wild, a beautiful colourful parrot-like bird that has real attitude. And we saw the Kakapo, an ancient flightless parrot that still survives today.

Kea

Kakapo

But what we didn't see was the extinct Heracles parrot, the largest parrot in the world. Another flightless parrot, it stood three feet high, weighed about 15 pounds and probably ate meat in addition to fruit and seeds.

Heracles

Heracles was discovered in 2008 when a pair of leg bones were found in a former mining town in New Zealand. But it wasn't until this year that it was identified as a parrot, by comparing the bones to bird skeletons at the South Australian Museum, and to images of birds on the website of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

There are many extinct species of bird in New Zealand, including the Moa, a giant emu-like bird and its predator the Haast's Eagle. Scientists will now return to the site of the Heracles' discovery, an area rich in fossils from the Miocene period.