Crimson Rosella

About the Crimson Rosella

The crimson rosella (Platycercus elegans) is a parrot native to eastern and south eastern Australia which has been introduced to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. It is commonly found in, but not restricted to, mountain forests and gardens. The species as it now stands has subsumed two former separate species, the yellow rosella and the Adelaide rosella. Molecular studies show one of the three red-coloured races, P. e. nigrescens, is genetically more distinct.

The crimson rosella was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus elegans. This Latin name had been used in 1605 by the Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius in his book Exoticorum libri decem for the hawk-headed parrot, however this predates the start of Linnean taxonomy.

The crimson rosella had been described and named by John Latham in 1781 as the "Beautiful Lory", from a specimen in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks, and then as the "Pennantian Parrot" in 1787 in honour of Thomas Pennant. However, Latham did not give the... Wikipedia →