Festive Parrot

About the Festive Parrot

The festive amazon (Amazona festiva), also known as the festive parrot, is a species of parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela. It is associated with forest (especially Várzea) and woodland growing near major rivers. Locally, it is also found in coastal mangroves (primarily in Amapá). There are two subspecies; A. f. festiva and A. f. bodini.

The festive amazon 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 festivus. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type location as "Indies". It was later designated as the Amazon River in Brazil. The festive amazon is now one of around thirty species placed in the genus Amazona that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1830. The genus name is a Latinized version of the name Amazone used in the 18th century by the Comte de Buffon. The specific epithet festivus is Latin for "festive" or "cheerful".

Two subspecies are recognised: A. f. bodini (Finsch, 1873) – east Colombia, east... Wikipedia →