The Martinique amazon (''Amazona martinicana'') is a hypothetical extinct species of Caribbean

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoide ...

in the family

Psittacidae The family Psittacidae or holotropical parrots is one of three families of true parrots. It comprises the roughly 10 species of subfamily Psittacinae (the Old World or Afrotropical parrots) and 157 of subfamily Arinae (the New World or Neotropi ...

. It is not known from any material remains, but was said to be similar to the

red-necked amazon The red-necked amazon (''Amazona arausiaca''), also known as the red-necked parrot, Dominican blue-faced amazon, lesser Dominican amazon, and Jaco parrot, is an amazon parrot endemic to Dominica. It is green, with bright splashes of various co ...

(''A. arausiaca'') from Dominica, the next major island to the north of Martinique. Natives are known to have traded extensively in parrots between the Antilles, and it seems that the Martinique population was in some way related to or even descended from ''A. arausiaca''.

Jean-Baptiste Labat Jean-Baptiste Labat (sometimes called, simply, Père Labat) (1663 – 6 January 1738) was a French clergyman, botanist, writer, explorer, ethnographer, soldier, engineer, and landowner. Life Labat was born and died in Paris. He entered the ...

described them as follows in 1742: Assuming it was a genuine and distinct

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

, it was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...

and became extinct due to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

as Martinique was cleared for agriculture. It has not been recorded since 1722. The Guadeloupe amazon (''"A. violacea"''), a similarly speculative "species", was said to inhabit the island of Guadeloupe. It is sometimes considered to be the same as ''"A. martinicana"''. However, it is more widely held to be related or identical to the imperial amazon (''A. imperialis''), the second ''Amazona'' species of Dominica.

References

Amazon parrots Bird extinctions since 1500 Birds described in 1905 Taxa named by Austin Hobart Clark Martinican culture Extinct birds of the Caribbean Species made extinct by human activities Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Hypothetical extinct species Controversial parrot taxa {{Martinique-stub