The Rodrigues parrot (Necropsittacus rodricanus) is an extinct species
of parrot that was endemic to Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. Its
relationships are unclear but it is classified with other Mascarene
parrots in the tribe Psittaculini and may have been related to the
broad-billed parrot of Mauritius. The Rodrigues parrot was green, and
had a proportionally large head and beak along with a long tail. It was
the largest parrot on Rodrigues, and had the largest head of any
Mascarene parrot; it may have looked similar to the great-billed parrot.
By the time it was discovered, it frequented and nested on islets off
southern Rodrigues, where introduced rats were absent, and fed on the
seeds of the Fernelia buxifolia shrub. The species is known from
subfossil bones and from mentions in contemporary accounts. It was last
mentioned in 1761, and probably became extinct soon after, perhaps due
to a combination of predation by rats, deforestation, and hunting by
humans..
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1430:
Philip the Good established the Order of the Golden Fleece,
referred to as the most prestigious, exclusive, and expensive order of
chivalry in the world.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Fleece>
1812:
New Orleans, the first steamship on the Mississippi River,
arrived in its namesake city to complete its maiden voyage.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_%28steamboat%29>
1929:
The Adventures of Tintin, a series of popular comic albums
created by Belgian artist Hergé, first appeared in Le Petit Vingtième,
the youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin>
1985:
Sir Clive Sinclair launched the Sinclair C5 personal electric
vehicle, "one of the great marketing bombs of postwar British industry",
which later became a cult collectable despite its commercial failure.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
blooper:
1. (informal) A blunder, an error.
2. (baseball, slang) A fly ball that is weakly hit just over the
infielders.
3. (film, informal) A filmed or videotaped outtake that has recorded an
amusing accident and/or mistake.
4. (nautical) A gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sail set from and aft of the
aftmost mast of a square-rigged ship; a spanker.
5. (US, dated) A radio which interferes with other radios, causing them
to bloop (squeal loudly).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blooper>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of
parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the
profession of good faith. But it gave an immense impulse to absolutism
by silencing the consciences of very religious kings, and made the good
and the bad very much alike. … The way was paved for absolute
monarchy to triumph over the spirit and institutions of a better age,
not by isolated acts of wickedness, but by a studied philosophy of
crime, and so thorough a perversion of the moral sense that the like of
it had not been since the Stoics reformed the morality of paganism.
--John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton>