Chestnut-fronted Macaw

About the Chestnut-fronted Macaw

The chestnut-fronted macaw or severe macaw (Ara severus) is one of the largest of the mini-macaws. It reaches a size of around 45 cm (18 in) of which around half is the length of the tail. They can be found over a large part of Northern South America from Panama south into Amazonian Brazil and central Bolivia. A feral population is found in Florida.

Their lifespan is listed as anything from 30 to 80 years of age. The chestnut-fronted macaw 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 severus. This macaw is now one of the eight extant species placed the genus Ara that was erected in 1799 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède. The genus name is from ará meaning "macaw" in the Tupi language of Brazil. The word is an onomatopoeia based on the sound of their call. The specific epithet severus is Latin meaning "grim", "cruel" or "stern". The species is considered to be monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

The chestnut-fronted or severe macaw is mostly green in colour... Wikipedia →