Papagali

Parrots, also known as psittacines /ˈsɪtəsaɪnz/,[1][2] are birds of the roughly 393 species in
92 genera that make up the orderPsittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions.
The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoidea("true" parrots),
the Cacatuoidea (cockatoos), and the Strigopoidea (New Zealand parrots). Parrots have a
generally pantropicaldistribution with several species inhabiting temperate regions in the Southern
Hemisphere, as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia.
Characteristic features of parrots include a strong, curved bill, an upright stance, strong legs, and
clawed zygodactyl feet. Many parrots are vividly coloured, and some are multi-coloured. Most
parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism in the visual spectrum. They form the most variably
sized bird order in terms of length. The most important components of most parrots' diets are seeds,
nuts, fruit, buds, and other plant material. A few species sometimes eat animals and carrion, while
the lories and lorikeets are specialised for feeding on floral nectar and soft fruits. Almost all parrots
nest in tree hollows (or nest boxes in captivity), and lay white eggs from which
hatch altricial (helpless) young.
Parrots, along with ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, are among the most intelligent birds, and the
ability of some species to imitate human voices enhances their popularity as pets. Trapping wild
parrots for the pet trade, as well as hunting, habitat loss, and competition from invasive species, has
diminished wild populations, with parrots being subjected to more exploitation than any other group
of birds. Measures taken to conserve the habitats of some high-profile charismatic species have also
protected many of the less charismatic species living in the same ecosystems.

Origins and evolution[edit]

Fossil dentary specimen UCMP 143274 restored as a parrot (left) or an oviraptorosaur

Psittaciform diversity in South America and Australasia suggests that the order may have evolved
in Gondwana, centred in Australasia.[3]The scarcity of parrots in the fossil record, however, presents
difficulties in confirming the hypothesis, and there is currently a higher amount of fossil remains from
the northern hemisphere in the early Cenozoic.[4] Molecular studies suggest that parrots evolved
approximately 59 million years ago (Mya) (range 66–51 Mya) in Gondwana. The three major clades
of Neotropical parrots originated about 50 Mya (range 57–41 Mya).[5]
A single 15 mm (0.6 in) fragment from a large lower bill (UCMP 143274), found in deposits from
the Lance Creek Formation in Niobrara County, Wyoming, had been thought to be the oldest parrot
fossil and is presumed to have originated from the Late Cretaceous period, which makes it about
70 million years old.[6] However, other studies suggest that this fossil is not from a bird, but from
a caenagnathidoviraptorosaur (a non-avian dinosaur with a birdlike beak), as several details of the
fossil used to support its identity as a parrot are not actually exclusive to parrots, and it is dissimilar
to the earliest-known unequivocal parrot fossils.[7][8] Likewise, the earliest parrots did not have the
specialised crushing bills of modern species.[4][9]
It is now generally assumed that the Psittaciformes, or their common ancestors with several related
bird orders, were present somewhere in the world around the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction
event (K-Pg extinction), some 66 Mya. If so, they probably had
not evolved their morphological autapomorphies yet, but were generalised arboreal birds. The
combined evidence supported the hypothesis of Psittaciformes being "near passerines", i. e., the
mostly terrestrial birds that emerged in close proximity to the K-Pg extinction. Analysis
of transposable element insertions observed in the genomes of passerines and parrots, but not in
the genomes of other birds, provides strong evidence that parrots are the sister group of passerines,
forming a clade Psittacopasserae, to the exclusion of the next closest group, the falcons.[10]
Europe is the origin of the first undeniable parrot fossils, which date from about 50 Mya. The climate
there and then was tropical, consistent with the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Initially,
a neoavian named Mopsitta tanta, uncovered in Denmark's Early Eocene Fur Formation and dated
to 54 Mya, was assigned to the Psittaciformes; it was described from a single humerus. However,
the rather nondescript bone is not unequivocally psittaciform, and more recently it was pointed out
that it may rather belong to a newly discovered ibis of the genus Rhynchaeites, whose fossil legs
were found in the same deposits.[11]

Fossil skull of a presumed parrot relative from the Eocene Green River Formation in Wyoming

Fossils assignable to Psittaciformes (though not yet the present-day parrots) date from slightly later
in the Eocene, starting around 50 Mya. Several fairly complete skeletons of parrot-like birds have
been found in England and Germany.[12] Some uncertainty remains, but on the whole it seems more
likely that these are not direct ancestors of the modern parrots, but related lineages that evolved in
the Northern Hemisphere and have since died out. These are probably not "missing links" between
ancestral and modern parrots, but rather psittaciform lineages that evolved parallel to true parrots
and cockatoos and had their own peculiar autapomorphies: