Brown-throated parakeet
Brown-throated parakeet | |
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Subspecies E. p. arubensis in Aruba | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Psittaciformes |
Family: | Psittacidae |
Genus: | Eupsittula |
Species: | E. pertinax
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Binomial name | |
Eupsittula pertinax | |
Synonyms | |
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The brown-throated parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), also known as the St. Thomas conure or brown-throated conure in
Taxonomy and systematics
The brown-throated parakeet was
These 14 subspecies are recognized; some of them are island endemics:[3]
- E. p. ocularis (Sclater, P.L. & Salvin, 1865)
- E. p. aeruginosa (Linnaeus, 1758)
- E. p. griseipecta (Meyer de Schauensee, 1950)
- E. p. lehmanni (Dugand, 1943)
- E. p. arubensis (Hartert, E., 1892)
- E. p. pertinax (Linnaeus, 1758)
- E. p. xanthogenia (Bonaparte, 1850)
- E. p. tortugensis (Cory, 1909)
- E. p. margaritensis Cory, 1918
- E. p. venezuelae (Zimmer, J.T. & Phelps, 1951)
- E. p. surinama (Zimmer, J.T. & Phelps, 1951)
- E. p. chrysophrys (Swainson, 1838)
- E. p. chrysogenys (Massena & Souancé, 1854)
- E. p. paraensis (Sick, 1959)
Subspecies E. p. ocularis has sometimes been treated as a separate species, the "Veraguas parakeet".[8]
Description
The brown-throated parakeet is 23 to 28 cm (9.1 to 11 in) long and weighs 76 to 102 g (2.7 to 3.6 oz). The sexes are alike. Adults of the
The other subspecies differ from the nominate thus:[8]
- E. p. ocularis: olive-brown face
- E. p. aeruginosa: buff forehead and orange-yellow crown and nape
- E. p. griseipecta, buff forehead, orange-yellow crown and nape, and olive-gray cheeks and breast
- E. p. lehmanni, buff forehead and orange-yellow crown, nape, and around the eye
- E. p. arubensis, yellow face with some brown mixed in
- E. p. xanthogenia, orange-yellow crown and nape
- E. p. tortugensis, buff forehead and orange-yellow crown, nape, and sides of the head
- E. p. margaritensis, whitish forehead and olive-brown face
- E. p. venezuelae, whitish forehead, olive-brown face, and yellowish upperparts
- E. p. surinama, whitish forehead, rich brown face with orange below the eye, and greener breast
- E. p. chrysophrys, whitish forehead and rich brown face
- E. p. chrysogenys, darker than all others and all a green forehead and crown
- E. p. paraensis, darker than all but chrysogenys with an orange-yellow belly
Distribution and habitat
The subspecies of the brown-throated parakeet are found thus:[3][8]
- E. p. ocularis, southwestern Costa Rica[4], and Panama from Costa Rica to Panamá Province
- E. p. aeruginosa, northern Colombia and Zulia in northwestern Venezuela
- E. p. griseipecta, extinct
- E. p. lehmanni, eastern Colombia and Amazonas state in southwestern Venezuela
- E. p. arubensis, Aruba, Leeward Antilles
- E. p. pertinax, Curaçao, Leeward Antilles
- E. p. xanthogenia, Bonaire, Leeward Antilles
- E. p. tortugensis, La Tortuga Island off northern Venezuela
- E. p. margaritensis, Margarita Island off northern Venezuela
- E. p. venezuelae, northern and central Venezuela
- E. p. surinama, northeastern Venezuela through the Guianas
- E. p. chrysophrys, Bolívar state in southeastern Venezuela, southwestern Guiana, and Roraima in adjacent northern Brazil
- E. p. chrysogenys, the Rio Negro's middle basin in northwestern Brazil
- E. p. paraensis, the Tapajós and Cururu river basins in Pará, north-central Brazil
The nominate subspecies of the brown-throated parakeet was
The species is a non-breeding visitor to Trinidad.[11]
The brown-throated parakeet inhabits a wide variety of landscapes including savannas, arid scrublands, mangroves, tropical deciduous forests, gallery forests, evergreen forests, and cultivated areas and pastures with some remaining trees. In Colombia, it reaches an elevation of 2,600 m (8,500 ft) but is found mostly below 1,200 m (3,900 ft) elsewhere.[8][12][13] It is also widely distributed in Venezuela, but shows preference for areas with open vegetation with higher probabilities of occurrence in the savannas of the Llanos bioregion and the arid scrublands of northwestern Venezuela.[14][15]
Behavior
Movement
Some populations on the mainland make seasonal movements and others are somewhat nomadic to follow the availability of food.[8]
Feeding
The brown-throated parakeet's diet includes seeds, fruits, nuts, flowers, leaves, and sometimes insects. A study in Venezuela found that up to 70% of its food in the study area came from human-planted, rather than wild, sources. The species is a significant crop pest, especially on maize and other field crops in Colombia and Venezuela, and in fruit plantations in the Leeward Antilles. It has been observed feeding on cactus.[8][16] The species typically forages in pairs or small flocks. Flocks will call in flight, and if an actively foraging flock responds, the others may join it.[17]
Breeding
The brown-throated parakeet's nesting season varies throughout its range. It may nest at almost any time of year in Suriname and the Antilles, and from February to April in Colombia and Venezuela. It usually excavates a cavity in a nest of an arboreal termite, often one from the genus Nasutitermes. Furthermore, it also nests in natural cavities in a tree, on a cliff face, or in an earthen bank. Often several pairs will nest in a single rotten tree. The clutch size is two to seven eggs. In captivity, the incubation period is 23 days. In the wild, the time to fledge is 36 to 37 days.[8]
Vocalization
The brown-throated parakeet is very vocal. Its flight calls "include high-pitched screeching and harsh grating 'scraart scraart' cries, rapidly repeated." It also makes "shorter, bisyllabic 'tchrit tchrit' and 'cherr cheedit'" calls, and from a perch "similar calls and chattering notes."[8]
Brown-throated parakeet contact calls show character shifts between different locations, and by most measures the calls from islands are more variable. These changes in island parakeets' calls may be a response to both the windy environment with poor sound transmission, and the isolation of the populations living on small islands.[18]
Status
The
Nest poaching is a concern in island populations,[19] and in Venezuela both young and adult individuals are locally traded as cage birds for the pet market.[20] However, compared to other species of psittacids, it is not very frequent in global wildlife trade.[21]
Gallery
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E. p. xanthogenia on the island of Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
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E. p. venezuelae; a pet inAragua, Venezuela
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E. p. aeruginosa in theCaribbean Region of Colombia
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E. p. ocularis; a juvenile kept as a pet in Panama
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A pet parrot
References
- ^ . Retrieved 16 March 2023.
- ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
- ^ a b c d Gill, F.; Donsker, D.; Rasmussen, P., eds. (January 2023). "Parrots, cockatoos". IOC World Bird List. v 13.1. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
- ^ a b Sandoval, L., Sánchez, C., Biamonte, E., Zook, J.R., Sánchez, J.E., Martínez, D., Loth, D. and O’Donahoe, J. (2010). Recent records of new and rare bird species in Costa Rica. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club 130(4): 237–245
- ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 98.
- ^ Bonaparte, Charles Lucien (1853). "Notes sur les collections rapportées en 1853, par M. A. Delattre". Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences (in French). 37: 806–810 [807].
- ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collar, N. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.brtpar1.01 retrieved March 16, 2023
- ^ a b Check-list of North American Birds (7th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Ornithologists' Union. 1998. p. 236.
- ^ "Brown-throated Parakeet Species Map". Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
- ^ Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. 30 January 2023. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved January 30, 2023
- ISBN 978-0-19-530155-7.
- ISBN 978-0-9827615-0-2.
- S2CID 213996993.
- . Retrieved 5 March 2024.
- ^ Markowitz, Rachel. "Aratinga pertinax brown-throated parakeet". Animal Diversity Web. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
- S2CID 53165482.
- .
- ^ Zager, Irene; Rodríguez-Clark, Kathryn; Eberhard, Jessica; Rodríguez, Jon; Millán, Pablo (19 December 2023). "Nest Poaching in the Venezuelan Insular Subspecies of the Brown-throated Parakeet (aratinga Pertinax)". Ornitología Neotropical. 20 (1).
- .
- hdl:10261/241538.