Monk Parakeet

About the Monk Parakeet

The monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus), also known as the Monk parrot or Quaker parrot, is a species of true parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is a small to medium bright-green parrot with a greyish breast and greenish-yellow abdomen. It originates from the temperate to subtropical areas of South America. Self-sustaining feral populations occur in many places, mainly in areas of similar climate in North America and Europe.

The monk parakeet was described by French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783, Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Psittacus monachus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. As Buffon did not specify the origin of his specimen, in 1937 the American ornithologist James Peters assigned the type location as Montevideo, Uruguay. The monk parakeet... Wikipedia →