Saint Croix Macaw

The Saint Croix Macaw (Ara autocthones) is an extinct species of parrot. The last populations lived on the Caribbean islands Saint Croix and Puerto Rico. It was originally described by Alexander Wetmore in 1937 based on a subfossil limb bone unearthed by L. J. Korn in 1934 from a kitchen midden at an Amerindian archeological sites on Saint Croix. A second specimen was described by Storrs L. Olson and Edgar J. Máiz López based on various limb and shoulder bones excavated from a similar site on Puerto Rico, while a possible third specimen from Montserrat has been reported. The species is one of two medium-sized macaws of the Caribbean, the other being the smaller Cuban Red Macaw (Ara tricolor). Its bones are distinct from Amazon parrots as well as from the other medium-sized but geographically distant Lear's Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) and Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis). The natural range is unknown because parrots were regularly traded between islands by indigenous people. Like other parrot species in the Caribbean, the extinction of the Saint Croix Macaw is believed to be linked to the arrival of humans in the region.