''Alisterus'' is a genus of medium-sized Australasian

parrot Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoid ...

s, comprising the

Australian king parrot The Australian king parrot (''Alisterus scapularis'') is a species of parrot endemic to eastern Australia ranging from Cooktown in Queensland to Port Campbell in Victoria. Found in humid and heavily forested upland regions of the eastern portion ...

(''Alisterus scapularis''), the

Papuan king parrot The Papuan king parrot (''Alisterus chloropterus''), also known as the green-winged king parrot, is a species of parrot in the family Psittaculidae found in New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and sub ...

(''A. chloropterus'') and the

Moluccan king parrot The Moluccan king parrot (''Alisterus amboinensis'') is a parrot endemic to Peleng Island, Maluku, and West Papua in Indonesia. It is sometimes referred to as the Ambon king parrot or Amboina king parrot, but this is potentially misleading, as ...

(''A. amboinensis''). The three species are respectively found in

eastern Australia The eastern states of Australia are the states adjoining the east continental coastline of Australia. These are the mainland states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and the island state of Tasmania. The Australian Capital Territory ...

, Papua, the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

and other

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n islands. Predominantly of red and green plumage, the long-tailed parrots are related to the genera ''

Aprosmictus ''Aprosmictus'' is a genus of parrots in the family Psittaculidae. Several former members, including the Australian king parrot, are now placed in the genus '' Alisterus''. Taxonomy The genus ''Aprosmictus'' was introduced in 1842 by the English ...

'' and ''

Polytelis The genus ''Polytelis'' (literally translates into 'magnificent') of the family Psittaculidae consists of three species long-tailed parrot endemic to Australia. Traditionally, it was included in the Australian broad-tailed parrots (tribe Plat ...

''.

Description

Medium-sized parrots, in length with long, broad tails. They have relatively small beaks for their size. The beaks of the adults are two colours, blackish and orange-reddish, except for the subspecies of the Moluccan king parrot, ''Alisterus amboinensis buruensis'', which has a grey-black beak, and female of the Australian species, ''Alisterus scapularis'', which has a grey beak.

Sexual dimorphism

The Papuan king parrot and the Australian king parrot show

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

in their plumage and beak colouration, which contrast to the Moluccan king parrot, where the male and female have an identical external appearance. The two subspecies of the Australian king parrot are similar except in size. The male has a red head and neck, red lower parts, blue back and rump, and green wings, each with a pale-green band (resembling a shoulder stripe). In the female, the head is green, the green being continuous over the neck, chest, and back. Red plumage covers the lower abdomen, and the pale-green wing band is small or absent. Juvenile males also have a green neck and head. The three subspecies of the Papuan king parrot all show sexual dimorphism and in all three subspecies, the males can be identified by prominent broad pale-green bands on each wing. The differences in the females between subspecies are more marked than the differences in the males. The female of subspecies ''A. chloropterus moszkowskii'' has green wings, and a red head, neck, chest, and abdomen resembling the male, and differs from the male with its much smaller pale-green wing band. The females of ''A. chloropterus chloropterus'' and ''A. chloropterus calloterus'' differ from the males with broadly similar sexual dimorphism to the Australian king parrot with extended green plumage, except the chests of the females of these two Papuan king parrot subspecies have vague transverse green and red striations.

Behaviour and ecology

The three species are forest-dwelling, and are found singly, in pairs, or in groups.Forshaw, Joseph M. (2006). Parrots of the World; an Identification Guide. Illustrated by Frank Knight. Princeton University Press. .page 70–71. Australian king parrots sometimes gather in groups of 30 or more around food sources, while Moluccan king parrots sometimes form groups up to 10, and the Moluccan king parrots may gather in groups of five or six. They generally feed on seeds, fruits, and berries in trees.

Taxonomy

Classified in the subfamily

Psittacinae Psittacinae is a subfamily of Afrotropical or Old World parrots, native to sub-Saharan Africa, which include twelve species and two extant genera. Among the species is the iconic grey parrot. The ''Poicephalus'' are usually green birds with di ...

within the true parrot family, the genus ''Alisterus'' was described by Australian amateur ornithologist

Gregory Mathews Gregory Macalister Mathews Order of the British Empire, CBE FRSE FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England. Life He was born in Biamble, New South Wal ...

in 1911. Mathews coined the name for his four-year-old son Alister. They were previously considered part of the genus ''

'', which contains the

red-winged parrot The red-winged parrot (''Aprosmictus erythropterus'') is a parrot native to Australia and New Guinea. It is found in grasslands, savannah, farmland, and woodland. Taxonomy The red-winged parrot was formally described in 1788 by the German natur ...

(''Aprosmictus erythropterus'') and

olive-shouldered parrot The jonquil parrot or olive-shouldered parrot (''Aprosmictus jonquillaceus'') is a species of parrot in the family Psittaculidae. It is found in forest, woodland and acacia savanna on the islands of Roti, Timor and Wetar. It is fairly common, ...

(''A. jonquillaceus''). The king parrots appear to be most closely related to the genera ''Aprosmictus'' and the long-tailed parrots of the genus ''

'', united by similarities in food begging and contact calls by chicks, and by more recent molecular analysis in 2005. The molecular work placed this group in turn as sister to a group containing ''

Eclectus ''Eclectus'' is a genus of parrot, the Psittaciformes, which consists of two known species, the eclectus parrot (''Eclectus roratus'') and the extinct ''Eclectus infectus'', the oceanic eclectus parrot. The extant eclectus parrot is a medium-siz ...

'', ''

Tanygnathus ''Tanygnathus'' is a genus of parrots in the Psittaculini tribe, of the superfamily of Psittacoidea (true parrots). Its species are native to Southeast Asia and Melanesia. Taxonomy The genus ''Tanygnathus'' was introduced by the German natura ...

'', and ''

Psittacula Members of the parrot genus ''Psittacula'' or Afro-Asian ring-necked parrots they are commonly known in aviculture originate from Africa to South-East Asia. It is a widespread group with a clear concentration of species in south Asia, but also wi ...

''. The three species and several subspecies of king parrots are: *''A. amboinensis'' (Linnaeus, 1766) -

**''A. a. amboinensis'' (Linnaeus, 1766) **''A. a. buruensis'' (Salvadori, 1876) **''A. a. dorsalis'' (Quoy & Gaimard, 1830) **''A. a. hypophonius'' (S. Müller, 1843) **''A. a. sulaensis'' (Reichenow, 1881) **''A. a. versicolor'' Neumann, 1939 *''A. chloropterus'' (E.P. Ramsay, 1879) -

**''A. c. callopterus'' (Albertis & Salvadori, 1879) **''A. c. chloropterus'' (E.P. Ramsay, 1879) **''A. c. moszkowskii'' (Reichenow, 1911) *''A. scapularis'' (Lichtenstein, 1816) -

**''A. s. minor'' Mathews, 1911 **''A. s. scapularis'' (Lichtenstein, 1816)

References

External links

Michael Dahlem's Birds of Australia
- King parrot photos and calls
Xeno-canto
- King parrot calls {{Taxonbar, from=Q578711 Articles containing video clips Taxonomy articles created by Polbot