This bird is in its nonbreeding [plumage], so in the spring when it’s in its breeding plumage, it’s going to be even more starkly male, female,” Lindsay says.

And then on the other side of the world, there is a very distinctive bird that was only known from Hawaii, called the po'o-uli. And that's now believed to have disappeared, when the last ...

Anyone who’s seen the funky movie Rio knows of the Spix’s macaw, the beautiful and goofy blue bird thought to be among the last of his kind in the film.

A new study is drawing attention to the possible extinction of an animal depicted in the animated film “Rio,” a story about two surviving blue macaws.

The researchers, part of the bird conservation group BirdLife International, noted that Spix’s macaws survive in captivity, and there are long-term plans to reintroduce the species in the wild.