Red-headed Macaw

The red-headed macaw or Jamaican green-and-yellow macaw (Ara erythrocephala) may have been a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae that lived in Jamaica, but its existence is hypothetical.

Description

Rothschild based it on a description which a Mr. Hill had sent to Philip Henry Gosse:

Head red; neck, shoulders, and underparts of a light and lively green; the greater wing coverts and quills, blue; and the tail scarlet and blue on the upper surface, with the under plumage, both of wings and tail, a mass of intense orange yellow. The specimen here described was procured in the mountains of

Trelawny and St. Anne's by Mr. White, proprietor of the Oxford estate.

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 and Dominican macaws. Its existence is considered dubious today.