''Psittacopes'' is an extinct genus of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

from

Middle Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn ...

. One species is recorded from Messel,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

(''P. lepidus''), and other three possible species are from London Clay,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, one named ''?Psittacopes occidentalis'' in 2022, and the other two unnamed. Its phylogenetic placement within Aves is uncertain; it was originally interpreted as a

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 ...

, but the phylogenetic analysis conducted by Mayr (2015) recovered it as more closely related to the

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

s and the extinct family Zygodactylidae.

References

* Mayr, G. '
Paleogene Fossil Birds
''. Springer, 2009. Eocene birds Prehistoric birds of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1998 {{Paleo-bird-stub