Amazona martinica (Clark)

Martinique Amazon (Amazona martinica)

The Martinique Amazon is known from several eyewitness accounts and at least a single, yet brief description.

The species was very closely related to the still existing Red-necked Amazon (Amazona arausiaca (Statius Müller)) from Dominica and the Saint Lucia Amazon (Amazona versicolor (Statius Müller)) from Saint Lucia and formed a superspecies together with them. 

***

The Martinique Amazon appears to have been incredible common, and the early European settlers saw it only as a pest, so did mention it but did never give any description of it, for example: 

Jean-Baptiste Labat, a French glergyman, who was the appointed procurator-general of all the Dominican convents in the Antilles, is the only one who gave at least a brief description of this species in which he mentioned that it was very much identical to the Red-necked Amazon yet differed from it in that its head feathers were rather slate than blue and in that it had less red feathers in its plumage.

*********************

References:

[1] Jean-Baptiste Labat: Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amerique: contenant l’histoire naturelle de ces pays, l’origine, les moeurs, la religion & le gouvernement des habitans anciens & modernes: Les guerres & les evenemens singuliers qui y sont arrivez pendant le séjour que l’auteur y a fait. A Paris, au palais: Chez Theodore le Gras 1742
[2] Charles A. Woods; Florence E. Sergile: Biogeography of the West Indies: Patterns and Perspectives, Second Edition. CRC Press; Auflage: Subsequent 2001

*********************

Depiction from: ‘Lionel Walter Rothschild: Extinct birds: an attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times: that is, within the last six or seven hundred years: to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction. London: Hutchinson & Co. 1907’

(public domain)

*********************

edited: 13.02.2020