The red-headed macaw or Jamaican green-and-yellow macaw (''Ara erythrocephala'') may have been a species of

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoide ...

in the family

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 ...

that lived in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, but its existence is

hypothetical A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obser ...

Description

Rothschild based it on a description which a Mr. Hill had sent to

Philip Henry Gosse Philip Henry Gosse FRS (; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of ma ...

: The ''Ara erythrocephala'' could have been found in the mountains of Trelawney and St. Anne's parishes, Jamaica. It was described to have been found in the mountains, and presumably in forest as well.

Extinction

It is believed that the main reason for the macaw's extinction was overhunting. The macaw is extinct, and it is conjectured to have been hunted to extinction in the early 19th century. It was a close relative of the

Cuban Cuban may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean * Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent ** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof * Cuban citizen, a perso ...

and

Dominican green-and-yellow macaw The Dominican green-and-yellow macaw (''Ara atwoodi''), Atwood's macaw or Dominican macaw, is an extinct species of macaw that may have lived on the island of Dominica. It is known only through the writings of British colonial judge Thomas Atwoo ...

s. Its existence is considered dubious today.

References

Ara (genus) Controversial parrot taxa Birds described in 1847 Extinct animals of Jamaica Taxa named by Philip Henry Gosse Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Hypothetical extinct species Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{parrot-stub