The Largest Parrots on Earth

Researchers have discovered the world’s largest parrots in New Zealand. However, these birds lived over 19 million years ago and now only their fossil remains.

What has happened?

• The fossil remains of the world’s largest parrot have been discovered in New Zealand.
• The parrot has been aptly named “Heracles inexpectatus ” given its unexpectedly large size and strength along with the sudden nature of the discovery.
• The bones of the bird were discovered in 2008 and stayed obscure before a team reevaluated them and ascertained that these bones belonged to a bird of a large size.

About Heracles Inexpectatus

• The Bird, which was most likely flightless, was at least 1 meter tall and had a weight of 7 kgs.
• It had a large beak that could crack anything it desired and could hunt.

Other Similar Birds

• While a large flightless bird, the Moa (Also extinct with a size of 3.6 meters after stretching its entire neck) was also found in New Zealand, no other flightless bird of such a size was found in the region.
• The closest surviving relation of the extinct bird is the critically endangered flightless New Zealand kakapo which is barely half the size of the extinct bird.

Other finds in the Region

• The fossil evidence of the parrot was discovered along with other fossils in a region near St. Bathans which is located in southern New Zealand.
• The entire area has provided several fossils from the Miocene period (from a duration of 5 million to 23 million years ago).

In the same region, paleontologists had discovered the remains of a giant borrowing bat which lived over millions of years ago.