'Special Powers' of the Rare and Elusive Night Parrot Finally Revealed

A critically endangered nocturnal parrot may have evolved a "wonky" skull and big ears to help it survive in the dark.

Using high-resolution CT scans on museum specimens, researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, were able to analyze the anatomy of the elusive night parrot to find out how it is able to survive with limited night vision in the Australian Outback and how we can protect it.

Details of its "special sensory powers" were published in the journal EMU Austral Ornithology on March 16.

"In using CT scanning, we were able to digitally peel back the preserved layers of feathers and skin to reveal the skeleton beneath without any damage to the specimen," Alice Clement, one of the study's co-authors, said in a statement.

Elen Shute, the study's first author, told Newsweek that the scans yielded some unexpected results.

"We were very surprised to find how specialized the bird's ear anatomy is," she said. "The ear chambers take up more than a third of the head length, more than in any other species we examined. The ears are also asymmetrical, which probably helps with directional hearing, as in many owls.

"All clues point to this bird having hearing that is optimized for listening for sounds at ground level," Shute said.

These features were very unusual for a parrot, she added.

"We haven't encountered this suite of characteristics in any other parrot," Shute went on. "There doesn't seem to be anything unusual about the ear anatomy of the only other nocturnal parrot, the Kakapo of New Zealand. The closest thing we have seen is ear asymmetry in many species of owl, which can be quite extreme and helps with pinpointing the location of prey on the ground."

The night parrot is one of only two truly nocturnal parrots in the world, along with the New Zealand kakapo.

"It has evolved a highly unusual lifestyle for a parrot," Shute said. "It feeds, nests and roosts on the ground in a hot, harsh environment. If this was an easy way of life, more parrot species would probably have done it. It's a tough little champion!"

The night parrot is considered one of the most elusive birds in the world, and for decades many people thought it had gone extinct, according to the Australian Museum. It was photographed for the first time in 2013, and its biology is still somewhat of a mystery because of its secretive nature and small population size.

"At most, there are estimated to be only a few hundred left, and that's an optimistic estimate," Shute said. "Over the last 10 years, small surviving populations have been rediscovered in semi-arid habitats in a few locations in northern Australia."

The researchers hope their findings will help aid future conservation efforts for this small, cryptic species. "When a species is this rare, elusive and hard to study, every little finding helps build a picture of its life," Shute said.

Studies like this can also improve our understanding of evolution and animal biology more generally.

"They stretch our understanding of what a parrot can evolve to do, but more broadly, I think they show that animals can conceal impressive bags of tricks that we know nothing about," Shute said. "There are many secrets just waiting to be discovered if you look, and that is both exciting and humbling. We don't know it all."