Broad Billed Parrot

Quick, name an extinct bird native to Mauritius.
I imagine you're thinking of the dodo, possibly the most well known extinct bird there is and a symbol used to promote the protection of endangered species.
However, the dodo will feature in a later post. Today I'm featuring another of Mauritius's all too many extinct species, the broad billed parrot.
The broad billed parrot became extinct at roughly the same time as the dodo but isn't as well known or known about.
The bird is only really known from sketches and subfossil findings, the holotype having been lost. In the journals of the Dutch sailors who visited Mauritius in the 1580s, they were initially referred to as Indian Ravens and so when the subfossil of a mandible was discovered the connection wasn't made. They were officially described in 1866, about 200 years after they became extinct. Invasive species, deforestation and hunting were the likely causes of the birds demise.
The postcard is a copy of a plate from Rothschild's 1907 book Extinct Birds and was drawn by Danish naturalist Henrik Gronvold. The blue colour is now considered to be inaccurate, a 2015 translation of a report by Johannes Pretorius who stayed on Mauritius and described the birds said they were very beautifully coloured, with a red body and beak and blue head.

Trivia

The birds were considered rather bad tempered.

They were not completely flightless but were poor fliers.

Of the many parrot species native to the Mascerene Islands, only one, the echo parrot is still living.