Black-billed Parrot

About the Black-billed Parrot

The black-billed amazon (Amazona agilis) is a parrot endemic to Jamaica. Sometimes called the black-billed parrot, this amazon parrot is mostly green with small patches of red on the wing and sometimes flecked on the head. Its bill makes it easy to separate from most other amazons, including the yellow-billed amazon, which also lives in Jamaica. It is the smallest Amazona parrot at 25 cm (10 in).

In 1751 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the black-billed amazon in the fourth volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The little green parrot". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a live bird that he had bought from a dealer in London. He was uncertain of the origin but assumed that it had come from the West Indies. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the black-billed amazon with the other parrots in the genus Psittacus. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Psittacus agilis and cited Edwards' work. The black-billed amazon is now one of 33 parrots placed in the genus Amazona that was... Wikipedia →