Most members of the parrot family can be told apart from other birds by their noisy calls, colorful feathers, and curved beaks. In addition to the parrots themselves, the scientific family called Psittacidae includes cockatoos and cockatiels, macaws, parakeets, lories and lorikeets, lovebirds, keas, and many other birds. Parrots have come to symbolize the Earth's tropical rain forests, yet they are commonly caged and kept as pets. Where parrots liveParrots and their relatives are found in the wild on all continents except Europe and Antarctica. Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and other Pacific islands are especially rich in parrots. Physical featuresParrots vary greatly in size. The largest is the hyacinthine macaw of South America, which can reach a length of 40 inches (100 centimeters). At the other extreme, the smallest of the pygmy parrots of New Guinea are only 3 inches (8 centimeters) long. As a group the parrots are known for their bright colors. The macaws and the lories are particularly splendid in appearance. The rainbow lorikeet is aptly named because it has a blue head and neck, red breast, green back and wings, and a yellow patch between neck and back. The cockatoos have crests of feathers on their heads. Male parrots often have brighter colors than the females. Males and females among the eclectus parrots of New Guinea are colored so differently that for a long time scientists did not realize that they were the same type of bird. Two of the toes on a parrot's foot point forward and the other two point backward. This makes the foot useful both for climbing and for grasping. Parrots are able to perch on one foot while using the other as a hand to hold food up to the mouth. A parrot's thick bill is also useful in several ways. It is attached to strong muscles and usually has an edge like a saw. A parrot can use its bill to cling to tree trunks as well as to crack open hard nutshells. The thick, fleshy tongue is used to hold food in the mouth. BehaviorMost of the birds in the parrot family eat seeds, nuts, and fruits. Many also eat insects. Some, however, have unusual tastes. The lories of Australia and the Pacific islands drink nectar from flowers and juices from fruits. The keas of New Zealand are fond of meat. People sometimes accuse keas of killing sheep. Parrots have excellent hearing and vision, and they are well known for being able to imitate human speech and other sounds. Many scientists consider the African gray parrot to be the best talker. African grays have learned hundreds of words. Some can even associate words with the objects and ideas that the words represent. Life cycleMale and female parrots form pairs and stay together through the nesting period. Parrot pairs often make displays of affection. The lovebirds are especially known for this. Most kinds of parrots nest in holes in trees, but the South American monk parakeets are different. They build large nests of sticks that hold many pairs of birds. In general, the smaller a parrot is, the more eggs it lays. After 16 to 30 days, the young are hatched. At first they are naked and helpless. Both parents feed the young with food from their own throats until they leave the nest. Parrots are known for living a long time. People sometimes claim that particular birds have lived 80 or 100 years, but it is hard to make sure that such claims are true. It is known for certain that a sulfur-crested cockatoo lived 56 years. Many parrots kept by people have lived longer than 30 years. Parrots and humansParrots are among the world's most popular cage birds. But parrots and some other birds can transmit to humans a disease called psittacosis, or parrot fever. To help stop the spread of the disease, laws were passed in the 1930s to keep people from taking these birds from their native lands. For many years settlers in the United States saw the Carolina parakeet as a threat to their fruit crops and as a source of meat and feathers. They shot the bird in such large numbers that by the middle of the 20th century it was extinct. More recently the survival of many other kinds of parrots has been threatened. Many birds have been collected illegally to be sold as pets, and much of the land where parrots live has been cleared for human use. |