1.
Roselle (plant)
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Roselle is a species of Hibiscus native to West Africa, used for the production of bast fibre and as an infusion, in which it may be known as carcade. It is an annual or perennial herb or woody-based subshrub, growing to 2–2.5 m tall, the leaves are deeply three- to five-lobed, 8–15 cm long, arranged alternately on the stems. They take about six months to mature, the roselle is known as the rosella or rosella fruit in Australia. In Mandarin Chinese it is 玫瑰茄, in Zambia the plant is called lumanda in ciBemba, Sindambi in Silozi, katolo in kiKaonde, or wusi in chiLunda. In Garo Hills, Meghalaya it is known galda, in the Philippines, Rizal province, it is known as Guragod, in Panay- and mainly Ilonggo-speaking parts of Mindanao, as Labug or Labog. The plant is cultivated for the production of bast fibre from the stem. The fibre may be used as a substitute for jute in making burlap, Hibiscus, specifically roselle, has been used in folk medicine as a diuretic and mild laxative. The red calyces of the plant are exported to the United States and Europe, particularly Germany. It can be found in markets in places, such as France, the green leaves are used like a spicy version of spinach. They give flavour to the Senegalese fish and rice dish thieboudienne, proper records are not kept, but the Senegalese government estimates national production and consumption at 700 t per year. In Burma their green leaves are the ingredient in chin baung kyaw curry. Brazilians attribute stomachic, emollient, and resolutive properties to the bitter roots, in Andhra cuisine, roselle is called gongura and is extensively used. The leaves are steamed with lentils and cooked with dal, another unique dish is prepared by mixing fried leaves with spices and made into a gongura pacchadi, the most famous dish of Andhra cuisine that is often described as king of all Andhra foods. In Burmese cuisine, called chin baung ywet, the roselle is used and considered affordable. It is perhaps the most widely eaten and popular vegetable in Burma, the leaves are fried with garlic, dried or fresh prawns and green chili or cooked with fish. A light soup made from leaves and dried prawn stock is also a popular dish. In the Philippines, the leaves and flowers are used to add sourness to chicken dish Tinola, in Vietnam, the young leaves, stems and fruits are used for cooking soups with fish or eel. See also Hibiscus tea In the Caribbean, sorrel drink is made from sepals of the roselle, in Mexico, agua de Flor de Jamaica frequently called agua de Jamaica is most often homemade
2.
Crimson rosella
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The crimson rosella is a parrot native to eastern and south eastern Australia which has been introduced to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. It is commonly found in, but not restricted to, mountain forests, the species as it now stands has subsumed two former separate species, the yellow rosella and the Adelaide rosella. Molecular studies show one of the three red-coloured races, var. nigrescens is genetically more distinct, however he did not give it a Latin name until 1790, when he named it Psittacus pennanti. In 1854, it was placed in the genus Platycercus by Martin Lichtenstein in his Nomenclator Avium Musei Zoologici Berolinensis, cayley reported that the first two alternate names were most common in the early part of the twentieth century. On Norfolk Island it is called simply red parrot and it was reduced to subspecies status once hybridization was noted where ranges overlap, however some authorities maintain the hybridization is not widespread and hence preserve its specific status. This view is in the minority, however, the name blue-cheeked rosella was proposed for the united species elegans, but was not generally taken up. Platycercus elegans is a medium-sized Australian parrot at 36 cm long, there are five subspecies, three of which are actually crimson. The red is replaced by yellow in the case of var. flaveolus, juveniles are said to ripen as they get older and turn from green to red. All races have blue cheeks and black-scalloped blue-margined wings and predominantly blue tail with red coloration. The crimson rosella’s blue tail feathers are one of the decorations of the satin bowerbird. The bill is grey and the iris dark brown. There is very little sexual dimorphism in crimson rosellas, the most noticeable difference between genders is that males are up to 15% larger, and have a relatively larger and wider beak. P. elegans elegans, the race of Victoria and eastern New South Wales. P. elegans nigrescens, occurring on Queenslands northeastern coast, and P. elegans melanoptera on Kangaroo Island, the main distinctions between these is size, nigrescens is the smallest of the three and melanoptera is the largest, both are slightly darker than the nominate race. The juveniles of var. elegans flaveolus, of the crimson as the two were found to interbreed where their ranges overlap, the main difference between the two is that the crimson areas replaced with light yellow and the tail more greenish. Variants that are close to the yellow race are designated subadelaidae. The crimson rosella occurs from southeastern South Australia, through Tasmania, Victoria, a disparate population occurs in North Queensland. Around 1910, a number of crimson rosellas were released off the Otago heads, New Zealand
3.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
4.
Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
5.
Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
6.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
7.
Parrot
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Parrots, also known as psittacines /ˈsɪtəsaɪnz/, are birds of the roughly 393 species in 92 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies, the Psittacoidea, the Cacatuoidea, and the Strigopoidea, Parrots have a generally pantropical distribution 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, almost all parrots nest in tree hollows, and lay white eggs from which hatch altricial young. Parrots, along with ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, are among the most intelligent birds, some parrots are intelligent and talk at the level of a four-to-five year old human. Measures taken to conserve the habitats of some high-profile charismatic species have protected many of the less charismatic species living in the same ecosystems. Psittaciform diversity in South America and Australasia suggests that the order may have evolved in Gondwana, molecular studies suggest that parrots evolved approximately 59 million years ago in Gondwana. The three major clades of Neotropical parrots originated about 50 Mya, likewise, the earliest parrots do not have the specialised crushing bills of modern species. If so, they probably had not evolved their morphological autapomorphies yet, the combined evidence supported the hypothesis of Psittaciformes being near passerines, i. e. the mostly land-living birds that emerged in close proximity to the K-Pg extinction. 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 Denmarks Early Eocene Fur Formation and dated to 54 Mya, was assigned to the Psittaciformes, fossils assignable to Psittaciformes date from slightly later in the Eocene, starting around 50 Mya. Several fairly complete skeletons of birds have been found in England. The fossil record—mainly from Europe—consists of bones clearly recognisable as belonging to parrots of modern type, at this point, however, is found the first unambiguous parrot fossil, an upper jaw that is indistinguishable from that of modern cockatoos. The Psittaciformes comprise three lineages, Strigopoidea, Psittacoidea and Cacatuoidea. Colourful feathers with high levels of psittacofulvin resist the feather-degrading bacterium Bacillus licheniformis better than white ones, lorikeets were previously regarded as a third family, Loriidae, but are now considered a tribe within the subfamily Lorinae, family Cacatuoidea. The two other tribes in the subfamily are the closely related fig parrots and budgerigar, the order Psittaciformes consists of roughly 393 species belonging to 92 genera
8.
Green rosella
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The green rosella or Tasmanian rosella is endemic to Tasmania and Bass Strait islands. At 37 cm long it is the largest species of the genus, Platycercus. Its diet is composed of seeds, fruit, berries and flowers, as well as insects, the green rosella was described by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788. The species specific epithet was derived from the belief the bird was collected from New Caledonia. Alternate common names include Tasmanian rosella, yellow-bellied or yellow-breasted parakeet, measuring 37 cm in length, the adult green rosella has a yellow head and underparts with blue cheeks and red frontal band above the beak. The feathers of the back and wings are black with green margins, the is rump yellow-olive. The wings are green and violet blue, the irises are dark brown and the bill is pale-grey. The male and female have similar appearances, except the female may have an orange-red hue in the feathers on the front of the neck. And Juvenile birds have a stripe, which is not present in the adults. Juveniles have dull yellow-green head and underparts and dull green upperparts, the green rosella is found across Tasmania and Bass Strait islands, and occurs in most habitats with some form of tree cover up to 1500 m above sea level. The green rosella is predominantly herbivorous, consuming seeds, berries, nuts and fruit, as well as flowers and they have also partaken of the berries of the common hawthorn, as well as Coprosma and Cyathodes, and even leaf buds of the common osier. The seeds of the silver wattle are also eaten, the breeding season is October to January, with one brood. The nesting site is usually a hollow over 1 m deep in a tree anywhere up to 30 m above the ground. A clutch of four or five white and slightly shiny eggs, the nestlings leave the nest around five weeks after hatching and remain with their parents for another month. The green rosella is reported to be hardier and easier to keep in captivity than other rosellas, lendon, Alan H. Australian Parrots in Field and Aviary. Forshaw, Joseph M. Parrots of the World, an Identification Guide, birdlife Australia - Birds in Backyards Profile Tasmania Parks &Wildlife Service
9.
Eastern rosella
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The eastern rosella is a rosella native to southeast of the Australian continent and to Tasmania. It has been introduced to New Zealand where feral populations are found in the North Island, the eastern rosella was named by George Shaw in 1792. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of the pale-headed rosella, the term white-cheeked rosella has been used for a species or superspecies combining the pale-headed and eastern forms. Hybrids of the two taxa have been recorded where their ranges meet in northeastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland, three subspecies of eastern rosella are recognised, P. e. eximius, Victoria and southern New South Wales. Black feathers on the back have green margins, P. e. elecica, northeast New South Wales and southeast Queensland. In the male the black feathers on the back have golden-yellow margins and this subspecies is also called the golden-mantled rosella, often abbreviated to GMR. White cheek patches are larger and the red on the head is darker, the eastern rosella is 30 cm long. It has a red head and white cheeks, the beak is white and the irises are brown. The upper breast is red and the lower breast is yellow fading to green over the abdomen. The feathers of the back and shoulders are black, and have yellowish or greenish margins giving rise to an appearance that varies slightly between the subspecies and the sexes. The wings and lateral feathers are bluish while the tail is dark green. The female is similar to the male though duller in colouration and has an underwing stripe, juveniles are duller than females and have an underwing stripe. The diet of eastern rosellas mainly consists of fruit, seeds, flowers, natural range is eastern Australia, down to Tasmania. The eastern rosella is found in wooded country, open forests, woodlands, gardens, bushlands. The eastern rosella has become naturalised in New Zealand, also in the Wellington-Hutt Valley Region, established in the 1960s from escaped cage birds, later colonising the foothills of the Tararua Range, to Eketahuna in the east, & Otaki in the west. Sightings from New Plymouth, Taupo, Gisborne, Tiritea, Banks Peninsula, Nelson area, the two species crossed & by 1955 no pure Crimson Rosellas remained in the Dunedin area. Eastern rosellas usually breed in spring but if needed summer as well, in the wild their breeding hollow is 1m deep and 30m high up a tree. The sign the eastern rosella mostly shows that they would be breeding is that they give food to each other, the eastern rosella is sometimes kept as a pet
10.
Northern rosella
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The northern rosella, also known as Browns parakeet or smutty rosella, is found in Australias Top End. It is found in savannah country throughout the Gulf of Carpentaria. This species is unusually coloured for a rosella, with a crown and white cheeks similar to its pale-headed rosella. It was first described by German naturalist Heinrich Kuhl, the specific epithet is derived from the Latin venustus charming, lovely or graceful. At 28 cm long it is smaller than all rosella species except the western rosella and it has a black forehead, crown and nape with white-on-blue cheek-patches. The back and wing feathers are blackish with yellow borders, while the feathers of the belly, chest, the long tail is bluish green, with the beak being pale grey and the iris dark. Immature plumage is similar to adult but duller and it is not a gregarious bird, found solitarily or in pairs. Nesting occurs in tree hollows in winter, with two to four eggs laid, the Northern Rosella exhibits a sharp and short chit-chut chit-chut contact call in flight, however while perched they make a three note whistle on ascending scale or metallic piping sounds. Soft chattering can be heard while feeding, whilst Aa shrill screech provides an alarm call, forshaw, Joseph M. & Cooper, William T. Parrots of the World. Landsdowne Editions, Melbourne Australia ISBN 0-7018-0690-7 Lendon, Alan H. Australian Parrots in Field, angus and Robertson, Sydney Australia ISBN 0-207-12424-8
11.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
12.
Australian ringneck
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The Australian ringneck is a parrot native to Australia. Except for extreme tropical and highland areas, the species has adapted to all conditions, currently, four subspecies are recognised, each with a distinct range. In Western Australia, the ringneck competes for nesting space with the rainbow lorikeet, to protect the ringneck, culls of the lorikeet are sanctioned by authorities in this region. Overall, though, the ringneck is not a threatened species, the subspecies of the Australian ringneck differ considerably in colouration. It is a medium size species around 33 cm long, the basic colour is green, and all four subspecies have the characteristic yellow ring around the hindneck, wings and tail are a mixture of green and blue. The B. z. zonarius and B. z. semitorquatus subspecies have a black head, back, rump and wings are brilliant green, throat. The two other subspecies differ from these subspecies by the bright crown and nape and blush cheek-patches. The B. z. macgillivrayi is generally green, with no red frontal band. The calls of the mallee ringneck and Cloncurry parrot have been described as ringing, the name of the twenty-eight parrot is an onomatopoeic derived from its distinctive twentee-eight call. The Australian ringneck was first described by the English naturalist George Shaw in 1805 and it is a broad-tailed parrot and related to the rosellas of the genus Platycercus, it has been placed in that genus by some authorities, including Ferdinand Bauer. Currently, four subspecies of ringneck are recognised, all of which have been described as species in the past. Several other subspecies have been described, but are considered synonyms with one of the above subspecies, B. z. occidentalis has been synonymised with B. z. zonarius. Intermediates exist between all subspecies except for between B. z. zonarius and B. z. macgillivrayi, intermediates have been associated with land clearing for agriculture in southern Western Australia. The researchers felt it was premature to reorganise the classification of the complex until more study was undertaken, the Australian ringneck is active during the day and can be found in eucalypt woodlands and eucalypt-lined watercourses. The species is gregarious and depending on the conditions can be resident or nomadic and this species eats a wide range of foods that include nectar, insects, seeds, fruit, and native and introduced bulbs. It will eat fruit and is sometimes seen as a pest by farmers. The nesting site is a hollow in a tree trunk, generally four or five white oval eggs are laid measuring 29 mm x 23 mm, although a clutch may be as few as three and as many as six. Fledgling survival rates have been measured at 75%, the rainbow lorikeet is considered a pest species in Western Australia and is subject to eradication in the wild
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