Psittacidae Psittaciformes
Home: Parrots are usually found in the tropics of South America, Australia and New Guinea, as well as the adjacent Islands.
Food: Seeds, fruit and nectar
Parrot Trivia:
- The parrot family has over 350 different species of all sizes and
colors. Lories, Lorikeets, cockatoos, macaws, short-tailed parrots,
long-tailed parakeets, lovebirds and parrot lets are all different species
of the Parrot family.
- The parrot's curved, hooked bill helps in cracking open seeds and pulling
itself up the branches of trees.
- Lories are the most colorful parrots.
- Many different types of parrots have the ability to imitate the human
voice.
- The African Gray Parrot is the best at imitating human speech.
Researchers have found that these birds have an intellect similar to
dolphins and primates.
- The Amazon Parrot is the best talker of the American Parrots.
Many Species of Parrots are Endangered
The great demand to have a parrot as a pet has endangered the existence of many of these beautiful birds. Also, the destruction of the rain forest greatly contributes to the demise of parrots.
Our Meet the Animals section includes research from the following websites:
The Austin Zoo's website: www.austinzoo.org.
Spanish translations courtesy of the Austin Zoo.
Rolling Hills Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center http://www.rhrwildlife.com/animbot.htm
The Birmingham Zoo http://www.birminghamzoo.com/
The WWW Virtual Library: Zoos http://zoonet.home.mindspring.com/www_virtual_lib/zoos.html
Photographs in Our Meet the Animals Section from PrintMaster Platinum v8.0 software.
Research on farm animals came primarily from http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/