Beautiful Parakeet (Psephotus pulcherimus)

The last living Paradise Parakeet was seen in the wild in Queensland, Australia, in 1927. Also known as the Beautiful Parrot/Parakeet, the male of the species was especially splendid, with extraordinary iridescent turquoise, aqua, scarlet, black and brown feathers.

This species shows a lesson in just how quickly a relatively common bird can become extinct due to human activity: overgrazing, land clearance, hunting by collectors and predation by introduced mammals have all been listed as contributors to the demise of this exceptionally pretty parrot.

The 'Norwich specimen' was collected by professional collector Frederick Strange (born in Aylsham, Norfolk), who after a trip to Australia in 1851, brought back an adult male 'Beautiful Parroquet'. Oddly, despite being only nine or ten years old, Frederick's son donated this specimen to the 'Norwich Museum' in 1852 (possibly because Frederick didn't want to be seen giving specimens away to museums, when it was his livelihood to sell them). Strange met an untimely death in 1854 whilst on a collecting trip to South Percy Island off the Queensland coast. He and three others were killed by Aboriginal people when they wandered into their territory.