Maroon-bellied Parakeet

About the Maroon-bellied Parakeet

The maroon-bellied parakeet (Pyrrhura frontalis) is a small parrot found from southeastern Brazil to north-eastern Argentina, including eastern Paraguay and Uruguay. It is also known as the reddish-bellied parakeet, and in aviculture it is usually referred to as the maroon-bellied conure, reddish-bellied conure or brown-eared conure.

The maroon-bellied parakeet was formally described in 1818 by the French ornithologist Louis Vieillot and given the binomial name Psittacus frontalis. Vieillot based his description on "La Perruche Ara à bandeau rouge" that had been described and illustrated by François Levaillant in 1801. The specific epithet frontalis is Modern Latin meaning "fronted" or "browed". Levaillant specified the locality as Brazil but Vieillot mistakenly changed this to Cayenne in French Guiana where the species does not occur. The locality is now restricted to the state of Espírito Santo in Brazil. The English naturalist George Shaw was formerly credited with introducing a binomial name for this species. In 1811 he had described the "banded parrakeet" and coined the name Psittacus vittatus, but in 1917 the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser pointed out... Wikipedia →