The carolina parakeet (conuropsis carolinensis
) was a beautiful, now extinct
North American bird in the Psittacidae
family. Measuring about 30 cm (12 inches) long and weighing about 280 grams (10 ounces) the carolina parakeet was bright green with a yellow head and an orange face and bill. It ranged from central Texas
to southern Wisconsin
in the west, and ranged east to Maryland
in the north and Florida
in the south.
The diet of the carolina parakeet were seeds of grasses, maple, elm, pines, and especially cocklebur. After the forests were cleared for farms, the birds switched to grains and the seeds of apple, peach, mulberry, pecan, grape, and dogwood trees, which caused farmers to view them as pests. Typically nesting along rivers and swamps in cypress and sycamore trees carolina parakeets were social animals that lived in flocks of 200-300 birds with as many as 30 birds in a single nest. This concentration combined with the fact that like many parrots, carolina parakeets would return to aid a wounded flock member, allowed farmers to destroy whole flocks at once. Carolina Parakeets were monogamous and long lived, sharing a single partner their entire lives. They laid two white 1.4" long eggs.
The carolina parakeet was still common at the beginning of the 19th century, but by 1832 James Audubon was already noting its decline. Its extinction was the result of the rapid cultivation of North America. The parakeet's rapid adaptation to eating commercial farm crops allowed it to wipe out entire harvests. In response, farmers relentlessly slaughtered the parakeets, killing them en mass whenever they could find them. The last two carolina parakeets were named Lady Jane and Incas. These two birds shared a cage in the Cincinnati Zoo for 32 years. When Lady Jane died in 1917 she left Incas heart-broken. Half a year later Incas died, on February 21, 1918.