Thirioux’s grey parrot (Psittacula bensoni), also known as the Mauritius Grey Parrot, is a little-known extinct species of parakeet which used to inhabit Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

 Island in the western Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

. It was only known from descriptions, as well as a single illustration published in a journal describing a voyage in 1602, until sub-fossil bones were described as Lophopsittacus bensoni in 1973. In 2007 The fossils were reinterpreted as belonging to a species of Psittacula instead. Travelers on Mauritius described how easy it was to catch the parrot by capturing one and making it call out, which would summon an entire flock. A grey parrot described from Réunion

Réunion

Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...

may have belonged to the same species. Cossigny's account from 1764 is the last known sighting.