Subfossil bones of the Mascarene grey parakeet found on Mauritius were first described in 1973 as belonging to a smaller relative of the broad-billed parrot in the genus Lophopsittacus.

The subfossils were later connected with 17th- and 18th-century descriptions of small grey parrots on Mauritius and Réunion, together with a single illustration published in a journal describing a voyage in 1602, and the species was instead reassigned to the genus Psittacula.

These remains had been collected in the early 20th century by French amateur naturalist Louis Etienne Thirioux, who had found them in a cave on Le Pouce mountain, on the Mascarene Island of Mauritius.

Holyoak also mentioned the possibility that the remains could represent a small subspecies of Necropsittacus or a wide-beaked form of Mascarinus, but maintained that they were best considered as belonging to a distinct species.

Hume also pointed out that an engraving accompanying the 1648 published version of Dutch captain Willem van West-Zanen's journal may be the only definite depiction of this species.

Many endemic Mascarene birds, including the dodo, are descended from South Asian ancestors, and Hume has proposed that this may also be the case for all the parrots there.

Hume has suggested that they all have a common origin in the radiation of the tribe Psittaculini, basing this theory on morphological features and the fact that parrots from that group have managed to colonise many isolated islands in the Indian Ocean.

[7] The Psittaculini could have invaded the area several times, as many of the species were so specialised that they may have evolved significantly on hotspot islands before the Mascarenes emerged from the sea.

[13] Genetic studies in the early 21st century found the genus Psittacula to be paraphyletic (an unnatural grouping excluding some of its subgroups), with for example the Mascarene parrot nested within it.

[14][15] To solve the issue, the German ornithologist Michael P. Braun and colleagues proposed in 2016 and 2019 that Psittacula should be split into multiple genera.

Subfossils show that its beak was about 29% longer than that of the sympatric echo parakeet, and comparatively broad, since the rami of each half of the mandible were deflected more outwards to the sides.

The grey parrots are especially tame and if one is caught and made to cry out, soon hundreds of the birds fly around ones’ ears, which were then hit to the ground with little sticks.

[7]Many other endemic species of Mauritius and Réunion were lost after the arrival of humans, so that the ecosystems of these islands are severely damaged and hard to reconstruct.

An account by Dutch admiral Steven van der Hagen from 1606 even suggests that the grey parrots of Mauritius were sometimes killed for amusement.

[7] In the 1720s, French traveller Sieur Dubois stated that the grey parrots on Réunion were especially sought after during their fat season, and also claimed they were crop-pests: Grey parrots, as good [to eat] as the pigeons... All the birds of this island have their season at different times, being six months in the low country and six months in the mountains when returning, they are very fat and good to eat...

The French settlers began to clear forests using the slash-and-burn technique in the 1730s, which in itself would have had a large effect on the population of parrots and other animals that nest in tree cavities.

[7] The grey parrots appear to have been common on Mauritius until the 1750s in spite of the pressure from humans, but since they were last mentioned by French colonist Charpentier de Cossigny in 1759 (published in 1764), they probably became extinct shortly after this time.

[7]The 1648 engraving possibly depicting this species was captioned with a Dutch poem, here in English naturalist Hugh Strickland's 1848 translation: For food the seamen hunt the flesh of feathered fowl, They tap the palms, and round-rumped dodos they destroy, The parrot's life they spare that he may peep and howl, And thus his fellows to imprisonment decoy.