Blue and Gold Macaw

The blue-and-gold macaw (Ara ararauna), also known as the blue-and-yellow macaw, is a large South American parrot with mostly blue top parts and light orange underparts, with gradient hues of green on top of its head. It is a member of the large group of neotropical parrots known as macaws. It inhabits forest (especially varzea, but also in open sections of terra firme or unflooded forest), woodland and savannah of tropical South America. They are popular in aviculture because of their striking color, ability to talk, ready availability in the marketplace, and close bonding to humans. They can also live for 65–70 years.



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Contents

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Taxonomy
Description
Distribution and habitat
Breeding
Conservation and threats
Aviculture
Gallery
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Blue-and-yellow macaw

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blue-and-yellow macaw
Blue-and-Yellow-Macaw.jpg
Male
Ara ararauna Luc Viatour.jpg
Female
Both at Jurong Bird Park
Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Psittaciformes
Family: Psittacidae
Genus: Ara
Species: A. ararauna
Binomial name
Ara ararauna
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Distribution Ara ararauna.svg
Distribution
Synonyms

Psittacus ararauna Linnaeus, 1758

The blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna), also known as the blue-and-gold macaw, is a large South American parrot with mostly blue top parts and light orange underparts, with gradient hues of green on top of its head. It is a member of the large group of neotropical parrots known as macaws. It inhabits forest (especially varzea, but also in open sections of terra firme or unflooded forest), woodland and savannah of tropical South America. They are popular in aviculture because of their striking color, ability to talk, ready availability in the marketplace, and close bonding to humans. They can also live for 65–70 years.
Taxonomy

The blue-and-yellow macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus ararauna.[2] This macaw is now one of the eight extant species placed in the genus Ara that was erected in 1799 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède.[3][4] The genus name is from ará meaning "macaw" in the Tupi language of Brazil. The word is an onomatopoeia based on the sound of their call. The specific epithet ararauna comes from the Tupi Arára úna meaning "big dark parrot" for the hyacinth macaw.[5] The word ararauna had been used by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in 1648 in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.[6] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.[4]
Description

These birds can reach a length of(30–34 in and weigh (2–3 lb, making them some of the larger members of their family. They are vivid in appearance with bright aqua blue feathers on the top of their body except for the head, which is lime colored. The bottom, however, is a rich deep yellow-light orange. Their beak is black, as well as the feathers under their chin. Its feet are of a gray color, save for black talons. The bird has white skin, with its face having nearly no feathers beside a few black ones spaced apart from each other forming a striped pattern around the eyes. The irises are pale light yellow.
Blue-and-yellow macaws can live from 30 to 35 years in the wild, and reach sexual maturity between the ages of 3 and 6 years.

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