The broad public learned about these wonderful blue birds when the cartoon movie Rio first hit theaters in 2011. The movie raised the subject of the Macaw’s extinction on a large scale. In 1819 German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix collected a specimen in Brazil and the bird was named after him. They were already rare by the time of this discovery. In June 2018 about 158 individuals remained, and the project to aid in their reproduction in the wild is working hard to improve the situation.