Editing Carolina parakeet (section)

==Behavior and diet==
[[File:Live captive Carolina parakeet.jpg|thumb|upright|This live captive bird was photographed by [[Robert Wilson Shufeldt]] around 1900.]] 
The bird lived in huge, noisy flocks of as many as 300 birds. It built its nest in a hollow tree, laying two to five<ref>{{cite web|url=https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Conuropsis_carolinensis|title=''Conuropsis carolinensis''|last=Amrhein|first=Kelly|year=2006|editor-last1=Dewey|editor-first1=Tanya|editor-last2=Fraser|editor-first2=Ann|access-date=26 May 2023|website=Animal Diversity Web}}</ref> (most accounts say two) {{convert|1.6|in|cm|abbr=on}} round white eggs.  Reportedly, multiple female parakeets could deposit their eggs into one nest, similar to nesting behavior described in the [[monk parakeet]] (''Myiopsitta monachus'').<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ecologycenter.us/natural-history-2/carolina-parakeet.html|website=Ecology Center|title=Carolina Parakeet|last=Gnam|first=Rosemarie|date=5 April 2023|access-date=26 May 2023}}</ref>

It mostly ate the seeds of forest trees and shrubs, including those of cypress, [[Celtis|hackberry]], beech, sycamore, elm, pine, maple, oak, and other plants such as [[thistle]]s and sandspurs (''[[Cenchrus]]'' species). It ate [[fruit]]s, including apples, grapes, and figs (often from orchards by the time of its decline), and flower buds, and occasionally, insects.<ref name=Griggs/><ref>{{cite web | url=https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Conuropsis_carolinensis/ | title=Conuropsis carolinensis (Carolina parakeet) | website=[[Animal Diversity Web]] }}</ref> It was especially noted for its predilection for cockleburs (''[[Xanthium strumarium]]''),<ref name="Phillips"/> a plant which contains a toxic [[glucoside]],<ref name="Vet">{{cite web |title=Cocklebur (''Xanthium strumarium'' L.) |publisher=University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana: Veterinary Medicine Library |url=http://www.library.illinois.edu/vex/toxic/cklburs/cklburs.htm |access-date=8 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150908005840/http://www.library.illinois.edu/vex/toxic/cklburs/cklburs.htm |archive-date=8 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and it was considered to be an agricultural pest of grain crops.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.allaboutbirds.org/carolina-parakeet-removal-of-a-menace/|title=Carolina Parakeet: Removal of a "Menace"|date=2008-04-15|newspaper=All About Birds|language=en-US|access-date=2017-01-25}}</ref>