The super rare 'night parrot' discovered in Australia

The chances are you have seen a parrot and you might also have heard one, too.

But have you ever heard of a night parrot?

The critically endangered species is one of the rarest birds in Australia and was once thought to be extinct for at least 100 years.

Now a group of researchers and rangers in the country say they have discovered the largest population of the bird in the world.

Ngururrpa Rangers worked alongside scientists in the search for the birds

The team working on the study say that fewer than 20 of the birds were known to live in Queensland, a state in eastern Australia.

Before 2020, there were only "occasional detections" of the birds from a handful of sites in Western Australia.

The study saw scientists and indigenous rangers search for the birds in the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) of Western Australia, to try learn more about how they interact with other living things and their environment.

They found that there could be at least 50 of the rare birds there, which is the largest known population in the world.

The species was thought to be extinct for at least 100 years

The team studied the area for three years from 2020 to 2023, using a special device called a songmeter - which records the sounds of animals communicating.

The songmeters were used at 31 different sites, with the devices detecting night parrots at 17 of those sites and helping to uncover 10 roosting areas.

These sites were then analysed to work out what threats the birds face, with feral cats and fire being identified as major dangers to the birds' survival.

The study suggested that helping the dingo population, which hunt feral cats, and reducing the risk of bushfires could help to protect night parrots.

How rare are night parrots?

The most recent estimates for numbers of night parrots left in the wild came from the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2022.

Night parrots are on the IUCN Red List which means they are at high risk of becoming extinct.

The IUCN estimates that there are between 40-500 left in the wild, with a best-guess estimate that there are 200 of the birds still in existence.