Black-tailed Parakeet
| Black-tailed Parakeet | ||||||||||
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Thectocercus acuticaudatus neumanni in Bolivia. |
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| Thectocercus acuticaudatus | ||||||||||
| ( Vieillot , 1818) |
The pointed tail - or Blaukopf parakeet ( Thectocercus acuticaudatus , Syn. : Aratinga acuticaudata , Psittacara acuticaudatus ) is a South African species of parrot from the genus Thectocercus .
description
It is 33 to 38 cm long and weighs 170 to 176 g, is predominantly green, with a dull blue color on the forehead, crown, cheeks and ears. It has a white featherless ring around each eye. The breast is green to yellow-green, often tinged with blue. The wings are green. When the wings are spread out, the outer wing feathers are blue-brown. The tail feathers are green, brown to reddish brown above and bright orange to scarlet red on the underside. The legs are pinkish-brown with gray-brown claws. The upper beak is horn-colored, the lower beak dark. The iris is orange red.
Young birds have less blue on their heads. Pointed-tailed parakeets can live between 30 and 40 years.
distribution and habitat
They inhabit disjunct northern Venezuela and northeastern Colombia , the interior of northeastern Brazil , northern Argentina and the area around the Río Paraguay and the Gran Chaco . They live there in dry savannahs such as the cerrado , dry and gallery forests and areas overgrown with cacti or Mauritia palm trees. In Colombia and Venezuela they reach heights of up to 400 and 600 meters respectively, the Bolivian subspecies Thectocercus acuticaudatus neumanni can still be found at heights of 1500 to 2650 meters.
Lifestyle and diet
Pointed-tailed parakeets migrate depending on the regional food supply. If there is a large supply of food, they can also be found in large schools.
Their food, which they look for both on the ground and in the tops of the trees, consists mainly of seeds , fruits (also from cacti), berries (from Condalia species) and nuts and they occasionally cause damage to fields.
Reproduction
The breeding season in Venezuela is March to July, May to August on Isla Margarita , and December in Argentina. These birds build their nests in tree holes in tall trees, the subspecies Thectocercus acuticaudatus neoxena only uses the black mangrove ( Avicennia germinans ). The birds usually lay 2 to 5 white eggs which are incubated by the female for about 23 days. After about 50 days the young are fully fledged and leave the nest. During the breeding season, black-tailed parakeets show increased aggression towards other conspecifics and enemies.
The first breeding in captivity took place in England in 1971.
Subspecies
There are five subspecies:
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus acuticaudatus ( Vieillot , 1818) - Blue-headed Parakeet , the nominate form from eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, south and southwest Brazil, and western Uruguay.
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus haemorrhous ( Spix , 1824) - Blue- fronted Parakeet , inhabits Piauí and northern Bahia in inner northeast Brazil . Its front forehead is pale blue, the beak is generally light and at 35 centimeters it is slightly smaller. The green of the basic plumage is somewhat lighter than that of the nominate form, and the underside of the tail is more strongly colored. The first introduction to Europe took place in London in 1864, but the first breeding was not successful until 1950 in Los Angeles by G. Rayson Brown.
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus koenigi ( Arndt , 1995) - from northeast Colombia and northern Venezuela. The under tail-coverts are less reddish-brown and this subspecies is generally smaller.
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus neoxena ( Cory , 1909) - Venezuelan Blue- fronted Parakeet , inhabits Isla Margarita (Venezuela). Its front forehead is pale blue, the underside is washed out blue, and its ear covers are green. The underside of the tail is brownish and at 32 centimeters the Venezuela Blue-fronted Parakeet is smaller than the nominate form.
- Thectocercus acuticaudatus neumanni ( Blake & Traylor ), 1947 - Bolivian blue-fronted parakeet, inhabits the highlands of eastern Bolivia. Its forehead is blue to the nape of the neck, its underside is penetrated by a deep, dull blue and the basic plumage is darker green. They live in the Andes, at altitudes of 1500 and 2650 meters.
Systematics
The pointed- tailed parakeet has long been part of the macaws of the genus Aratinga . After it was in the meantime assigned to the genus Psittacara , molecular genetic studies showed only a distant relationship to these two genera, which is why the bird was transferred to the monotypical genus Thectocercus .
literature
- Josep del Hoyo , Andrew Elliott, Jordi Sargatal and David A. Christie: Handbook of birds of the world. Volume 4: Sandgrouse to Cuckoos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, ISBN 84-87334-22-9 .
- Thomas Arndt : South American parakeets in the sense of volume 3, Horst Müller-Verlag , Walsrode 1981, ISBN 3-923269-02-1 , pp. 55–59.
Individual evidence
- ↑ JV Remsen, Jr. et al .: DNA-sequence data require revision of the parrot genus Aratinga (Aves: Psittacidae). In: Zootaxa. Volume 3641, 2013, pp. 296-300, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.3641.3.9 .
Web links
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Blue-crowned Parakeet (Aratinga acuticaudata) in the Internet Bird Collection
- Psittacara acuticaudatus inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011.2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
- World Parrot Trust , accessed December 14, 2009