The brown-throated parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), also known as the St. Thomas conureorbrown-throated conureinaviculture, is a species of bird in the subfamily Arinae of the family Psittacidae, the African and New World parrots. It is found in Costa Rica, Panama, the northern mainland of South America, and islands off the South American coast.[3][4]
The brown-throated parakeet is 23 to 28 cm (9.1 to 11 in) long and weighs 76 to 102 g (2.7 to 3.6 oz). The sexes are alike. Adults of the nominate subspeciesE. p. pertinax have a yellow forehead, face, and chin. Their crown, nape, and upperparts are green. Their breast is dull olive and their belly grass green with an orange patch in its center. Their wings are mostly green with dullish blue edges and tips on the flight feathers; their tail feathers are also green with dullish blue edges and tips. Immature birds have very little yellow.[8]
The other subspecies differ from the nominate thus:[8]
E. p. ocularis: olive-brown face
E. p. aeruginosa: buff forehead and orange-yellow crown and nape
E. p. griseipecta, buff forehead, orange-yellow crown and nape, and olive-gray cheeks and breast
E. p. lehmanni, buff forehead and orange-yellow crown, nape, and around the eye
E. p. arubensis, yellow face with some brown mixed in
E. p. xanthogenia, orange-yellow crown and nape
E. p. tortugensis, buff forehead and orange-yellow crown, nape, and sides of the head
E. p. margaritensis, whitish forehead and olive-brown face
E. p. venezuelae, whitish forehead, olive-brown face, and yellowish upperparts
E. p. surinama, whitish forehead, rich brown face with orange below the eye, and greener breast
E. p. chrysophrys, whitish forehead and rich brown face
E. p. chrysogenys, darker than all others and all a green forehead and crown
E. p. paraensis, darker than all but chrysogenys with an orange-yellow belly
The species is a non-breeding visitor to Trinidad.[11]
The brown-throated parakeet inhabits a wide variety of landscapes including savannas, arid scrublands, mangroves, tropical deciduous forests, gallery forests, evergreen forests, and cultivated areas and pastures with some remaining trees. In Colombia, it reaches an elevation of 2,600 m (8,500 ft) but is found mostly below 1,200 m (3,900 ft) elsewhere.[8][12][13] It is also widely distributed in Venezuela, but shows preference for areas with open vegetation with higher probabilities of occurrence in the savannas of the Llanos bioregion and the arid scrublands of northwestern Venezuela.[14][15]
The brown-throated parakeet's diet includes seeds, fruits, nuts, flowers, leaves, and sometimes insects. A study in Venezuela found that up to 70% of its food in the study area came from human-planted, rather than wild, sources. The species is a significant crop pest, especially on maize and other field crops in Colombia and Venezuela, and in fruit plantations in the Leeward Antilles. It has been observed feeding on cactus.[8][16] The species typically forages in pairs or small flocks. Flocks will call in flight, and if an actively foraging flock responds, the others may join it.[17]
The brown-throated parakeet's nesting season varies throughout its range. It may nest at almost any time of year in Suriname and the Antilles, and from February to April in Colombia and Venezuela. It usually excavates a cavity in a nest of an arboreal termite, often one from the genus Nasutitermes. Furthermore, it also nests in natural cavities in a tree, on a cliff face, or in an earthen bank. Often several pairs will nest in a single rotten tree. The clutch size is two to seven eggs. In captivity, the incubation period is 23 days. In the wild, the time to fledge is 36 to 37 days.[8]
The brown-throated parakeet is very vocal. Its flight calls "include high-pitched screeching and harsh grating 'scraart scraart' cries, rapidly repeated." It also makes "shorter, bisyllabic 'tchrit tchrit' and 'cherr cheedit'" calls, and from a perch "similar calls and chattering notes."[8]
Brown-throated parakeet contact calls show character shifts between different locations, and by most measures the calls from islands are more variable. These changes in island parakeets' calls may be a response to both the windy environment with poor sound transmission, and the isolation of the populations living on small islands.[18]
The IUCN has assessed the brown-throated parakeet as being of Least Concern. It has a very large range and its estimated population of at least five million mature individuals is believed to be stable. No immediate threats have been identified.[1] It is the most numerous parrot in much of its range. Subspecies E. p. tortugensis, however, appears to be in decline, and the populations in mainland Venezuela are persecuted because they feed on crops.[8]
Nest poaching is a concern in island populations,[19] and in Venezuela both young and adult individuals are locally traded as cage birds for the pet market.[20] However, compared to other species of psittacids, it is not very frequent in global wildlife trade.[21]
^ abcdGill, F.; Donsker, D.; Rasmussen, P., eds. (January 2023). "Parrots, cockatoos". IOC World Bird List. v 13.1. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
^ abSandoval, L., Sánchez, C., Biamonte, E., Zook, J.R., Sánchez, J.E., Martínez, D., Loth, D. and O’Donahoe, J. (2010). Recent records of new and rare bird species in Costa Rica. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club 130(4): 237–245
^Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 153, 299. ISBN978-1-4081-2501-4.
^ abcdefghijCollar, N. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Brown-throated Parakeet (Eupsittula pertinax), 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.brtpar1.01 retrieved March 16, 2023
^ abCheck-list of North American Birds (7th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Ornithologists' Union. 1998. p. 236.
^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. 30 January 2023. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved January 30, 2023
^van Perlo, Ber (2009). A Field Guide to the Birds of Brazil. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 124. ISBN978-0-19-530155-7.
^McMullan, Miles; Donegan, Thomas M.; Quevedo, Alonso (2010). Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Bogotá: ProAves. p. 61. ISBN978-0-9827615-0-2.
^Ferrer-Paris, José R.; Sánchez-Mercado, Ada (September 2020). "Making inferences about non-detection observations to improve occurrence predictions in Venezuelan Psittacidae". Bird Conservation International. 30 (3): 406–422. doi:10.1017/S0959270919000522. hdl:1959.4/unsworks_67010. S2CID213996993.
^Buhrman-Deever, Susannah C.; Hobson, Elizabeth A.; Hobson, Aaron D. (2008). "Individual recognition and selective response to contact calls in foraging brown-throated conures, Aratinga pertinax". Animal Behaviour. 76 (5): 1715–1725. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.08.007. S2CID53165482.
^Eberhard, Jessica R; Zager, Irene; Ferrer-Paris, José R; Rodríguez-Clark, Kathryn (1 January 2022). "Contact calls of island Brown-throated Parakeets exhibit both character and variance shifts compared to calls of their mainland relatives". Ornithology. 139 (1). doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukab076.
