The neotropical parrots or New World parrots comprise about 150 species in 32 genera found throughout South and Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands, and two species formerly inhabited North America. They are also present on a few Pacific islands such as the Galápagos. Among them are some of the most familiar and iconic parrots, including the blue and gold macaw, sun conure, and yellow-headed amazon. The parrots of the New World have been known to Europeans since Columbus remarked upon them in his journal in 1492. Systematic descriptions of the birds were first available in German naturalist Georg Marcgraf's Historia Naturalis Brasiliae published in 1648, and English naturalist Mark Catesby's two-volume Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands published in London in 1731 and 1743. Several species and one genus have become extinct in recent centuries. A second genus is extinct in the wild. Over a third of the extant species are classified as threatened by the IUCN. A few of these are in imminent danger of extinction with fewer than 500 individuals in the wild or in captivity: glaucous macaw, Spix's macaw, blue-throated macaw, Puerto Rican parrot, and indigo-winged parrot. The chief reasons for decline in parrot populations are habitat loss through deforestation by clear-cutting, burning, and flooding by construction of dams, capture for the pet trade, and introduction of non-native predators. The New World parrots are monophyletic, and have been geographically isolated for at least 30–55 million years by molecular dating methods. Though fairly few fossils of modern parrots are known, most of these are from tribe Arini of macaws and parakeets; the oldest are from 16 million years ago. They attest that modern genera were mostly distinct by the Pleistocene, a few million years ago. Neotropical parrots comprise at least two monophyletic clades, one of primarily long-tailed species such as the macaws, conures, and allies, and the other of primarily short-tailed parrots such as amazons and allies. A new species, the bald parrot or orange-headed parrot, was discovered as recently as 2002.
Taxonomy
Neotropical parrots belong to the subfamilyArinae which along with the African or Old World parrots comprise the family Psittacidae, one of three families of true parrots. The taxonomy of the neotropical parrots is not yet fully resolved, but the following subdivision is supported by solid studies.
