Can a species bounce back from being “extinct in the wild”? The blue-winged macaw is showing how it can be done.

After a fragment was found in 1943 and dated to 500 B.C., the Nok terra-cotta sculptures shook up the Eurocentric academic consensus that no advanced cultures existed in sub-Saharan Africa that early.

Researchers couldn’t figure out why the birds were dying — then they turned up an unusual suspect.