Description
The New Caledonian Lorikeet is 18–19 cm long (the size of a large hand), 7–8 cm of which is the slim and pointed tail. The wings are slender and pointed, measuring 91 mm in the only specimen. Its tarsus is 16 cm long.
Female birds are green overall, with deep violet blue crown and dark bluish thighs, a yellowish face and underside face, and a red anal region. The tail is green above and yellowish olive below, with the four lateral feathers with red basal markings followed by a black band, tipped yellow on the underside. The beak is orange-red, the iris probably dark orange like the feet.
Males have not been recorded. Based on similar species, they likely have more red coloration, probably including the face, underside of the primaries and the rump sides; and are likely slightly larger. Immature birds should look like dull females.
Its noises are also unknown but—again based on similar species—are likely high-pitched screeches. These would be the most telling sign of the species, but only to observers familiar with other local parrots' vocalizations. While the birds would be unmistakable due to their small size, they are extremely hard to spot.
Read more about this topic: New Caledonian Lorikeet
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)