Night Parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis by William T Cooper from Australian Parrots.

Breaking news for Monday, February 19, 2007, out of Queensland, Australia, acknowledges that a parrot thought extinct has been found.

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service says the discovery of a rare bird in outback Queensland will probably attract worldwide scientific interest.

Rangers found a dead night parrot – one of Australia’s rarest birds – in the Diamantina National Park in the state’s far south-west late last year. The last reported sighting was 1990.

The team of Walter Boles (Australian Museum ornithologist), Max Thompson (visiting US ornithologist), and Wayne Longmore (Australian Museum associate), with the Night Parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis, specimen they found in 1990. Photo: C. Bento/Nature Focus.

Keith Twyford from Parks and Wildlife says the parrot is classed as endangered, but the most recent discovery has sparked big interest.

“I suspect it is of international significance, we haven’t got that level of interest just yet but it wouldn’t surprise me if we did,” he said.

“There’s been calls from all across Australia coming into the Queensland Museum and into our office so there’s an enormous amount of interest from the ‘twitchers’ [bird watchers who focus on collecting new species] out there and the scientific and conservation community as well, so it’s a very, very exciting find.”

Mr Twyford says more surveys will now be done.

“Before the big wet that you’ve had out west we had park rangers and park scientists working through western Queensland looking for night parrots,” he said.

“Unsuccessful at this stage and the weather got in our way to continue that but once conditions get a bit better, we’ll be looking to continue that survey work probably in conjunction with Birds Australia, who’ve already indicated they’d be very keen to help us out.”- – Australian Broadcasting Corporation