''Lorius'' is a genus of lory in the

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 ...

family

Psittaculidae Psittaculidae is a family containing Old World parrots. It consists of five subfamilies: Agapornithinae, Loriinae, Platycercinae, Psittacellinae and Psittaculinae. This family has been accepted into ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World' ...

. The genus contains six species that are distributed from 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 ...

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 ...

through

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

to the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. They have characteristic red

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

with varying amounts of blue (and in some yellow and white), green wings, and in all but one species a black crown. The bills are orange and the feet are grey. With lengths of up to and average weights of , the members of this genus tend to be the largest of the

Loriinae Loriinae is a subfamily of psittacine birds, one of the five subfamilies that make up the family Psittaculidae. It consists of three tribes, the lories and lorikeets ( Loriini), the budgerigar ( Melopsittacini) and the fig parrots (Cyclopsittini ...

subfamily.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Lorius'' was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist

Nicholas Aylward Vigors Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785 – 26 October 1840) was an Ireland, Irish zoologist and politician. He popularized the classification of birds on the basis of the quinarian system. Early life Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow on 17 ...

with the

purple-naped lory The purple-naped lory (''Lorius domicella'') is a species of parrot in the family Psittaculidae. It is forest-dwelling endemic to the islands of Seram, Ambon, and perhaps also Haruku and Saparua, South Maluku, Indonesia. It is considered endan ...

as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The word "lory" comes from the

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

''lūri'', a name used for a number of species of colourful parrots. The word was used by the Dutch writer

Johan Nieuhof Johan Nieuhof (22 July 1618 in Uelsen – 8 October 1672 in Madagascar) was a Dutch traveler who wrote about his journeys to Brazil, China and India. The most famous of these was a trip of from Canton to Peking in 1655-1657, which enabled ...

in 1682 in a book describing his travels in the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...

. The spelling "laurey" was used by English naturalist

Eleazar Albin Eleazar Albin ( fl. 1690 – c. 1742)Michael A. Salmon, Peter Marren, Basil Harley. ''The Aurelian Legacy'' (University of California Press, 2000) pp. 109-110. was an English naturalist and watercolourist illustrator who wrote and illustrat ...

in 1731 for a species of parrot from Brazil, and then in 1751 the English naturalist George Edwards used the spelling "lory" when introducing names for five species of parrot from the East Indies in the fourth volume of his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. Edwards credited Nieuhof for the name.

Species

The genus contains six species. Naturalis Biodiversity Center - ZMA.AVES.209 - Lorius lory viridicrissalis De Beaufort, 1909 - Psittacidae - bird skin specimen.webm, Turn around video of the male Lorius lory viridicrissalis De Beaufort, 1909. Museum specimen,

syntype In biological nomenclature, a syntype is any one of two or more biological types that is listed in a description of a taxon where no holotype was designated. Precise definitions of this and related terms for types have been established as part of ...

Naturalis Biodiversity Center Naturalis Biodiversity Center ( nl, Nederlands Centrum voor Biodiversiteit Naturalis) is a national museum of natural history and a research center on biodiversity in Leiden, Netherlands. It was named the European Museum of the Year 2021. Alt ...

Naturalis Biodiversity Center - ZMA.AVES.210 - Lorius lory viridicrissalis De Beaufort, 1909 - Psittacidae - bird skin specimen.webm, Turn around video of the female Lorius lory viridicrissalis De Beaufort, 1909. Museum specimen, syntype, Naturalis Biodiversity Center

Taxonomy

Species

References

Further reading