Researchers say the striking blue species of parrot that inspired the animated movie Rio probably went extinct nearly 20 years ago.

In the movie, the last-remaining male Spix’s macaw flies from Minnesota, US to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to find the last remaining female.

Spoiler alert: the pair meet, fall in love and rear a chick.

But, sadly, that’s not how it played out in real life.

Because the species has been presumed extinct, in the wild based on findings in a new study from BirdLife International.

(Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation)

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The species was one of eight others to have their extinction status either confirmed or deemed highly likely by researchers, according to a BirdLife International press statement.

“Our results confirm that there is a growing wave of extinctions sweeping across the continents, driven mainly by habitat loss and degradation from unsustainable agriculture and logging,” BirdLife’s chief scientist Stuart Butchart said.

People were pretty upset as the news broke:

Thankfully, there are as many as 80 of the blue macaws still alive in captivity, so there is still some hope for the species’ survival.

But not in the wild.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the bird was hunted for the illegal live bird trade, dramatically impacting the population.

“The last known individual in the wild disappeared at the end of 2000, and no others may remain,” a union statement from 2016 said.

“Any remaining population is likely to be tiny.”

(Getty)

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A single male was found at a site in Brazil in July, 1990, shacked up with a similar-looking blue-winged macaw.

A captive female was released in the area in 1995, and paired up with the male.

However, it wasn’t to be.

“Unfortunately, the female disappeared from the release site after seven weeks and is suspected to have collided with a power-line,” a union website explained.

The male Spix’s macaw was last sighted with his former mate in January 2000, “but neither bird has been seen since the end of that year”.

However, there remains some very faint glimmers of hope for the species, with the union received occasional reports of sightings.

One such was in June, 2016, with a 16-year-old Brazilian teenager claiming to have filmed the rare macaw flying between the trees.

The video, which was posted to the BirdLife International YouTube channel, shows a bird in the distance and, as far as we know, hasn’t be verified as a legitimate sighting.

If it was a Spix’s macaw, it was believed to have been recently released from captivity.