The Tucumán amazon (''Amazona tucumana''), also known as the Tucumán parrot, alder amazon, or alder parrot, is a

vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatening its survival and reproduction improve. Vulnera ...

of bird in subfamily

Arinae The neotropical parrots or New World parrots comprise about 150 species in 32 genera found throughout South and Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean islands and (formerly) the southern United States. Among them are some of the most familiar an ...

of the family

Psittacidae The family Psittacidae or holotropical parrots is one of three families of true parrots. It comprises the roughly 10 species of subfamily Psittacinae (the Old World or Afrotropical parrots) and 157 of subfamily Arinae (the New World or Neotropi ...

, the African and New World parrots. It is found in Argentina and Bolivia.

Taxonomy and systematics

The Tucumán amazon and the red-spectacled amazon (''A. pretrei'') have been considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

but are now treated as

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 30 January 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 30, 2023 The Tucuman amazon is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

Description

The Tucumán amazon is about long and weighs . It is mostly green, with black edges on the body feathers that give a scaly appearance. Its forehead and sometimes its lores are red. Bare white skin surrounds its eye. Its lower thighs are orange-yellow, its primary coverts red, and its undertail coverts yellow-green. Its primaries have blue tips and its tail feathers yellowish tips. Immature birds have entirely green thighs.Collar, N., P. F. D. Boesman, and E. de Juana (2020). Tucuman Parrot (''Amazona tucumana''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.tucpar1.01 retrieved February 28, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The Tucumán amazon is found from Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca departments in Bolivia south into Argentina as far as Catamarca Province. It inhabits the

Yungas The Yungas ( Aymara ''yunka'' warm or temperate Andes or earth, Quechua ''yunka'' warm area on the slopes of the Andes) is a bioregion of a narrow band of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains from Peru and Bolivia, and extends int ...

bioregion in montane woodland characterized by pure stands of alder (''

Alnus acuminata ''Alnus acuminata'' is a species of deciduous tree in the Betulaceae family. It is found in montane forests from central Mexico to Argentina.Zuloaga, F. O., O. N. Morrone, M. J. Belgrano, C. Marticorena & E. Marchesi. (eds.) 2008. Catálogo de la ...

'') or ''

Podocarpus parlatorei ''Podocarpus parlatorei'' is a species of tree in the family Podocarpaceae and native to Argentina and Bolivia, where it grows on steep hillsides on the eastern flanks of the Andes. It has been harvested commercially in the past but is now protec ...

''. In elevation it mostly ranges between but occurs as low as .

Behavior

Movement

The Tucumán amazon moves seasonally between higher elevations and, in August to October, as low as at the Chaco/Yungas

ecotone An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and gras ...

Feeding

A study in Argentina found that almost a quarter of the Tucumán amazon's diet was the fruits and seeds of ''Podocarpus parlatorei''; most of the rest was taken from six other plants. Winter food was dominated by '' Acacia'' seeds. Flowers and fruits of both native and introduced plants were eaten.Rivera, L., Politi, N. and Bucher, E.H. (2012). Ecología y conservación del Loro Alisero (''Amazona tucumana''). El Hornero. 27(1): 51–61.

Breeding

The Tucumán amazon nests between November and January. It uses cavities in large trees, often those excavated by woodpeckers. In the Argentina study, the average clutch was 3.6 eggs and ranged from one to five. The incubation period was 26 to 30 days and fledging occurred 50 to 58 days after hatch. In another study, nest success was related to the availability of ''Podocarpus parlatorei'' fruits.

Vocalization

The Tucumán amazon makes a "variety of screeches and calls, including shrill shrieks and lower-pitched barks." Its flight call is "a repeated, somewhat yelping, shrill “quiowk”."

Status

The IUCN originally assessed the Tucumán amazon in 2004 as being of Least Concern, then in 2005 as Near Threatened, and since 2011 as Vulnerable. It has a somewhat limited range and its estimated population of fewer than 15,000 mature individuals is believed to be decreasing. "The species is susceptible to trapping for trade, which is considered the main driver of rapid population declines". "Habitat in Argentina is highly degraded and consists of small, isolated fragments." It is considered locally common but generally uncommon. It occurs in several protected areas, but less than 25% of its preferred habitat is protected.