page_title: Spix's macaw
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Spix's macaw / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Spixara
context_page_description: Spix's macaw, also known as the little blue macaw, is a macaw native to Brazil. It is a member of tribe Arini in the subfamily Arinae, part of the family Psittacidae. It was first described by German naturalist Georg Marcgrave, when he was working in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil in 1638 and it is named for German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix, who collected a specimen in 1819 on the bank of the Rio São Francisco in northeast Bahia in Brazil.
  The bird is a medium-size parrot weighing about 300 grams, smaller than most of the large macaws. Its plumage is various shades of blue, with a grey-blue head, light blue underparts, and vivid blue upperparts. Males and females are almost identical in appearance, however the females are slightly smaller on average. Currently there are no known survivors of the species outside of captivity.
  The species inhabited riparian Caraibeira woodland galleries in the drainage basin of the Rio São Francisco within the Caatinga dry forest climate of interior northeastern Brazil. It had a very restricted natural habitat due to its dependence on the tree for nesting, feeding and roosting.
context_section_description: The species appears to have been seen and described – "MARACANA Brasiliensibus, avis Psittaco planè similis (cuius & species) sed maior, plumae totius ex gryseo subcoerulescunt, clamat ut Psittacus. Fructus amat, Murucuia imprimis.  (Translation: "Brazilian parrot, bird very similar to Psittacus [ grey parrot ] but larger, the entire plumage is ashy-bluish, calls like a parrot. Fruit it loves, especially Passionfruit.") – by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave when he worked in Pernambuco in 1638.
  Spix's macaw is named for German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix, who collected the first specimen in April 1819 near the São Francisco River in the vicinity of Juazeiro  Recent authorities cite the type locality as Curaca, but others say the locality can't be known with certainty. Spix wrote: "habitat gregarius, rarissimus licet, propre Joazeiro in campis riparüs fluminis St. Francisci, voce tenui insignis" ("it lives in flocks, although very rare, near Joazeiro in the region bordering the rio São Francisco, [and is] notable for its thin voice").
  The next reported sighting of the bird wasn't for 84 years, in 1903 by Othmar Reiser of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 400 kilometres (250 mi) west of Juazeiro at Lagoa de Parnaguá (lake at Parnagua) in the State of Piaui. (What we now know about its habitat and probable range casts doubt on this observation) Reiser had also seen one in captivity at a railway station in Remanso. These observations resulted in an early supposition of a vast potential range for the species in the dry interior of the northeast.
  With the passage of the Brazil Wildlife Protection Act in 1967, Brazil forbade the export of its wildlife, and in 1975 became a party to the CITES treaty. These actions barely affected the illicit bird trade, but Spix owners were forced underground (consequently complicating the later effort to initiate a captive recovery program).
  The bird had not been studied in the wild until the 1970s. In 1974, Brazilian ornithologist Helmut Sick observed groups of three and four of the birds near Formosa do Rio Preta in northwest Bahia flying over buriti Palms (Mauritia flexuosa). As recently as 1980, Robert Ridgely (ornithologist) stated that "there is no available evidence indicating a recent decline in numbers." Beginning around 1980, at the very height of the illegal bird trade, traders and trappers removed dozens of Spix's from the wild, and by the early 80s, it was generally believed to be extinct in the wild. Naturalist Dr. Paul Roth conducted field surveys of the bird in the Curacá region from 1985 to 1988. Roth found only 5 birds in 1985, three in 1986, and only two after May 1987.
  Two of the birds were captured for trade in 1987. A single male, paired with a female blue-winged macaw, was discovered at the site in 1990. A female Spix's macaw released from captivity at the site in 1995 was killed by collision with a power line after seven weeks. The last wild male disappeared from the site in October 2000; his disappearance was thought to have marked the extinction of this species in the wild. However, wild Spix's macaws may have been sighted in 2016. While the IUCN Red List views its status as Critically Endangered and possibly extinct in the wild, ornithologist Nigel Collar of BirdLife International, the authority for the IUCN Redlist of birds now calls this bird extinct in the wild.
caption: Plate from Spix's 1824 description. It has the bill of a juvenile
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