Monk Parakeet
|
? Monk
Parakeet |
|||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Domesticated female Monk
Parakeet
|
|||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | |||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
| Myiopsitta
monachus ( Boddaert, 1783) |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
The Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus), also known as the Quaker Parrot, is a species of parrot that originated in the temperate areas of Argentina and Brazil in South America. It is the only member of the genus Myiopsitta.
There are four subspecies:
- M. m. monachus, southeastern Brazil, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina
- M. m. calita, western and southern Argentina
- M. m. cotorra, southeastern Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina, and southern Brazil
- M. m. luchsi an isolated population in Bolivia which is smaller and may deserve species status.
This parrot is, on average, 29 cm long with a 48 cm wingspan, and weighs 100 g. Females tend to be 10-20% smaller. It has bright green upperparts. The forehead and breast are pale grey and the rest of the underparts are very-light green to yellow. The flight feathers are dark blue, and the tail is long and tapering. The bill is orange. The call is a loud and throaty graaa or skveet. Domestic breeds have produced colors other than the natural plumage; these include white and blue in place of green.
The Monk Parakeet is the only parrot that builds a stick nest, in a tree or on a man-made structure, rather than using a hole. This gregarious species often breeds colonially, building a single large nest with separate entrances for each pair. In the wild, the colonies can become quite large, with pairs occupying separate "apartments" in nests that can reach the size of a small automobile. Their 5-12 eggs hatch in about 24 days.
Unusually for a parrot, Monk Parakeet pairs occasionally tolerate the inclusion of a third parakeet (often a grown offspring) which assists with feeding the young.
Monk Parakeets are highly intelligent, social birds. Those kept as pets routinely develop large vocabularies, and are thought to be second only to the African Grey Parrot in verbal skills.
The Monk Parakeet was brought to the United States in the late 1960s as a pet. Many escaped or were intentionally released, and populations were allowed to proliferate. By the early 1970s, it was established in seven states, and by 1995 it had spread to eight more. There are now thought to be approximately 100,000 in Florida alone.
As one of the few temperate-zone parrots, the Monk Parakeet is more able than most to survive cold climates, and colonies exist as far north as New York City and Chicago, Illinois. This hardiness makes this species second only to the Ring-necked Parakeet amongst parrots as a successful introduced species.
Problems with introduced populations
In Argentina and Uruguay, Monk Parakeets are regarded as major agricultural pests (as Charles Darwin noted). In areas where they have been introduced, some fear that they will harm crops and native species. Evidence of the harm of these birds in introduced areas is disputed, and many people oppose killing a charismatic bird, but there have been local bans and eradication programs in some areas of the USA. For example, in late 2005 United Illuminating, an electric power company in Connecticut, began trapping birds that had nested on top of power poles and turning them over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for euthanasia [1]. This program outraged some local residents, a lawsuit was filed, and as of early 2006, the eradication has been halted. An experimental program to coax the remaining birds from the poles to artificial nesting platforms has met with some initial success.
Outside the USA, introduced populations do not appear to raise similar controversy, presumably because of smaller numbers of birds.