Red-fan Parrot

About the Red-fan Parrot

The red-fan parrot (Deroptyus accipitrinus), also known as the hawk-headed parrot, is a New World parrot hailing from the Amazon rainforest. It is the only member of the genus Deroptyus. It is found in Brazil, Suriname, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, areas of northeast Peru, Venezuela, French Guiana and Guyana.

The red-fan parrot was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus accipitrinus. Linnaeus based his description on the "hawk-headed parrot" that had been described and illustrated in 1751 by the English naturalist George Edwards in the fourth volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type locality as India. It was redesignated as Cayenne in French Guiana by Carl Hellmayr in 1905. The red-fan parrot is now the only species placed in the genus Deroptyus that was introduced in 1832 by the German naturalist Johann Wagler. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek derē meaning "neck" with ptuon meaning "fan". The specific epithet accipitrinus is from Latin and... Wikipedia →