The world's largest parrot, the fossils of which have been discovered in Central Otago, is actually believed to have been possibly omnivorous or carnivorous and flightless, a professor says.
Named Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its myth-like size and strength, the new parrot is estimated to have been up to 1m-tall and weigh about 7kg.
It's twice the size of the critically endangered Kākāpō - formerly the world's largest parrot.
Heracles inexpectatus was found in fossils dating back 19 million years near St Bathans by palaeontologists from New Zealand and Australia.
The name is a reference to Hercules, from the Greek mythology, who killed the sons of Neleus except for Nester. Nestor is also the name that was given to the Kākāpō and kea. Whereas inexpectatus has been used in the name to express the surprise of the finding.
Photo: Dr Brian Choo / Flinders University.
Professor Paul Scofield from Canterbury Museum says they’ve been working at the site for 18 years along with Flinders University, University of New South Wales, and Te Papa.
He says this is among the most extraordinary things that they’ve found.
“When you’ve got such a giant animal, its food requirements become quite extreme, and it’s a possibility that, although almost all parrots living today are actually herbivorous, this one could have been at least omnivorous or just possibly even carnivorous … [and] potentially flightless.”
They still haven’t figured out whether it really was flightless because of the limited bones found, Prof Scofield says.
“We’re not finding very many bones, and the bones of these two individuals [parrots] could have been eaten by crocodiles or they could’ve died naturally and floated down the river and in to the lake. But it’s only a chance that you’ll find these single bones that we found.”
Photo: Professor Paul Scofield / Canterbury Museum
The animal is believed to have been living by the lake in a climate much warmer than today – meaning that it could survive along with a diversity of other breeds and even a greater number of animals than today.
The team noticed the bones right away from the three to four tonnes of clay they were excavating in 2008.
“We put them in a pile of bones to be worked on – which we had labelled ‘giant eagle’. We’d never imagined that it was actually a parrot … because gigantism isn’t really known in parrots.”
After a process of elimination and comparing the bones to living and extinct breeds, they found out it wasn’t part of an eagle.
Another interesting theory is that it probably had a deep voice – just like the Kākāpō does, Prof Scofield says.
