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Description

The Rodrigues parrot was a large, big-headed, long-tailed bird that occurred all over Rodrigues feeding on the seeds of trees, as well as fruit and leaves. It nested in tree cavities and perhaps in hollows amongst rocks. By the 1720s, it frequented the southern islets off Rodrigues, returning to the mainland only to drink water due to persecution from introduced rats. The arrival of tortoise hunters in the 1730s, coupled with an increase in hunting and deforestation, reduced the population further. In 1761, the French astronomer Alexandre Gui Pingré described it as very rare, and no one has observed it since.