''Mopsitta tanta'' is an extinct

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

of uncertain taxonomic position from the Early Eocene of

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

; its remains were recovered from the

Fur Formation The Fur Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian ( Lower Eocene Epoch, c. 56.0-54.5 Ma) age which crops out in the Limfjord region of Denmark from Silstrup via Mors and Fur to Ertebølle, and can be seen in many cliffs and quarries ...

. So far, the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

and only known specimen is a single humerus bone of rather large size. Although the phylogenetic position of genus is unclear, it was initially presumed to be phylogenetically closer to Recent

Psittacidae The family Psittacidae or holotropical parrots is one of three families of true parrots. It comprises the roughly 10 species of subfamily Psittacinae (the Old World or Afrotropical parrots) and 157 of subfamily Arinae (the New World or Neotropi ...

than to other known

Palaeogene The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning o ...

psittaciforms and may, therefore, represent the oldest known

crown-group In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. ...

parrot. However, further examination subsequently pointed out that the fossil lacks clear psittaciform (let alone psittacid)

apomorph In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

ies. Following the discovery that the fossil

ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word ...

genus '' Rhynchaeites'' also occurred in the Fur Formation, it was hypothesized that the ''"M. tanta"'' humerus actually belongs in that genus, being a better match (except in size) to the known ''Rhynchaeites'' remains than to any psittaciform fossil hitherto found.Mayr G. & Bertelli S. (2011)
"A record of Rhynchaeites (Aves, Threskiornithidae) from the early Eocene Fur Formation of Denmark, and the affinities of the alleged parrot ''Mopsitta''"
''Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments'' 91(3): p. 229-236. The new species has been nicknamed the Danish Blue Parrot in honor of the Monty Python “dead parrot” skit where

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

claimed that a newly purchased “Norwegian Blue Parrot” was not “bleedin’ demised” as his disgruntled customer asserted, but was simply “shagged out following a prolonged squawk.”

References

https://grrlscientist.medium.com/monty-pythons-dead-parrot-discovered-efbdb2a8ff47 Prehistoric birds of Europe Eocene birds Prehistoric bird genera Fur Formation Extinct monotypic bird genera {{Paleo-bird-stub