Malherbe's Parakeet

About the Malherbe's Parakeet

Orange-fronted parakeet (Cyanoramphus malherbi) or Malherbe's parakeet is a small parrot endemic to New Zealand. It is known in te reo māori as kākāriki karaka or orange-fronted kākāriki, with kākāriki translating to 'small parrot' and the colour green. The species shares the name "orange-fronted parakeet" with Eupsittula canicularis, a Central American species. Restricted to a few valleys in the South Island, its population declined to around 200 in the 1990s, and it is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Nationally Critical by the New Zealand Threat Classification System. The parakeet has since been translocated to several islands and a fenced mainland site.

The genus Cyanoramphus is endemic to New Zealand and surrounding islands and it has been proposed that the ancestor of Cyanoramphus dispersed from New Caledonia to New Zealand via Norfolk Island 500,000 years ago. Controversy has surrounded the classification of this bird; is it its own species or a colour morph of the similar yellow-crowned parakeet (C. auriceps)? It was described in 1857 from a museum specimen of unknown origin; its species name honours French... Wikipedia →