Parrot
| Parrot |
|---|
|
| Scientific Classification |
|
| Families |
 |
| African Gray |
Parrots are any of the species of birds belonging to the taxonomic family, which includes roughly 372 species in 86 genera. They are perhaps best known as a popular domestic house pet due to their vocal mimicry, bright colors, interactive behavior.
Body Design
Scientist distinguish parrots by two characteristics, that we as ordinary people not scientist can recognize. The first one is their beak, they are able to move there lower beak, but they also have an extra joint that allows them to move their top beak too. This makes their beak very strong and even more precise when they are eating food. The second characteristic is there feet. What scientist call Zygodactyl Feet. This mean that they have four toes. two of their toes are pointing backwards and the other two are pointing forwards. This makes it very easy for them to perch on branches, but not as easy to walk on a flat surface. You will not see other birds with this kind of feet because it makes it hard to walk on a flat surface. [2]
Besides the Beak and the feet they also have a very muscular tongue. They use this strong tongue to move there food from the top of the mouth to the bottom of the esophagus. This helps them with digestion. [3]
Phylogeny
- Family Strigopidae (New Zealand parrots).
- Family Cacatuidae (cockatoos)
- Subfamily Microglossinae (palm cockatoo)
- Subfamily Calyptorhynchinae (dark cockatoos, cockatiel)
- Subfamily Cacatuinae (white cockatoos)
- Family Psittacidae (true parrots)
- Subfamily Micropsittinae (pygmy parrots)
- Tribe Micropsittini
- Subfamily Loriinae (lories and lorikeets)
- Subfamily Psittacinae (tropical parrots and parakeets)
- Tribe Arini (amazons, conures, macaws)
- Tribe Cyclopsittacini (fig parrots)
- Tribe Polytelini (west Australian parrots)
- Tribe Psittrichadini (Pesquet's Parrot)
- Tribe Psittacini (African parrots)
- Tribe Psittaculini (Asian parrots and parakeets)
- Subfamily Platycercinae (broad-tailed parrots)
- Tribe Melopsittacini (budgerigar)
- Tribe Neophemini (Australian broad-tailed parrots, Bourke's parrot)
- Tribe Pezoporini (ground parrots)
- Tribe Platycercini (rosellas)
Life Cycle
The average life of a parrot is any where from fifty to ninety-five years in the wild.They live anywhere from fifty years to seventy years as a pet. [4]
Parrots start their life in a shell, they hatch and are born. When they are born they are helpless, they are blind and naked and need their parent to feed them until they are able to catch food and fly. There are many important stages of a bird that people don't always think about. One of the very important stages is called imprinting. This is the stage where when they first open their eyes they learn psychologically who their parents are. An example of this would be if a human is taking care of a baby bird, when it opens it eyes and see that the human is feeding it they will automatically think that this is my parent and a very strong bond will form with that bird and that particular person. There is also a stage called fledging. This is a bird that is just growing its flight feathers and is getting ready to fly but still needs its parents for food and water. Then there is a stage where you have to wean them off of the babyfood and you start getting them to eat adult food.
When a parrot is fully fledged and you have weaned completely it is then able to survive completely on its own in the wilderness and if you are keeping it as a pet you do not have to be as committed to it as before. There is a stage that they call parrot puberty this is when it becomes able to have baby parrots. Then the final stage adult parrots. These parrots are usually way more calm then when they were younger and you do not have to be there with them every second if they are your pet. This also means that they are also trying to find a mate and settle down when they are in the wild. In this stage they also have a personality change for some it is more significant then others, the most common is that they tend to be more calm and relaxed. [5]
Ecology
Parrots live in all kinds of places such as ;Australia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central America, Africa, Sulawesi, Philippines, French Polynesia, New Guinea, And Mexico, etc.. As you see they are able to adapt to many new environment. There are a few parrots that are completely sedentary or parrots that are completely migratory. They tend to fall in the middle somewhere of the two which makes it hard to understand their regional movements, and other species of parrots have adopted a completely nomadic lifestyle so it makes it hard to track their movements. [6]
There are a lot of things that parrots can eat. They have a wide variety of foods, some of the foods that they eat are: bird seeds this usually contains sunflower seeds, other seeds nuts and can contain dried fruits. Other foods are Nuts, vegetables, food with protein in it, meat, cooked foods, and treats the treats are usually food that is sweeter and that is not the healthiest foods.[7]
There are many animals that eat parrots that you would not expect. Some of these are; birds of prey like hawks, eagles and owls. Some other animals that eat them are large snakes like Boa constrictors and Pythons. Monkeys also eat parrots when they can find them, but they will not just hunt them down and only eat them. There are eagles in Asia that will eat the parrots right out of the tree it doesn't matter if they are a baby or if they are an adult. [8]
Pet Care
When you have a parrot their are many things that you need to know. The first is their diet. They are omnivores so they eat both meat and plants, so you need to make sure that you feed your bird both of these not just seeds. When you are feeding your bird you can ask yourself "would I eat this all the time? Or would I want my water to look like this?". You need to make sure that you change their water daily and make sure that you change their food daily. One thing that you need to be careful of the main thing is that there are many things that are very toxic to them and can kill them. The main ones are: Avocado, chocolate, caffeine, heavily salted or greasy foods, alcohol and fruit pits. There are a lot of varieties that you can do with your birds diet. They need a variety of food and they need vegetables like we do, if they don't eat it right away you can keep giving it to them, but if they don't do it after several times they are probably not going to eat.[9]
Other things that are good to know are Bathing, Medical care, Interactions. Your bird needs to be bathed at least once a week. This part of taking care of your pet should be very easy because they love to take baths. There are several ways that you can give them a bath. The first is you can get a water bottle and spray them and you want to stand about 18 inches away from them. You can also put a bowl of water on their cage and don't put a lot of water in their dish, the most water you want to put in their dish is 1-2 inches of water. For drying you can let them air dry or you can use a blow dryer and stand about 18 inches away from them and put it on low.[9]
Medical care for your parrot is important but you might not be able to recognize when they are sick. It will be hard because in the wild they act like they are not sick so that they do not look inferior. So knowing your bird is important. Another thing that is good to know is that sometimes they may start bleeding and you don't know why, this is more than likely because of something called a blood feather, this is a feather that is still growing and has a supply of blood. There are styptic powders that you can get, they are powders that you can put on a cut and they will stop bleeding and you should have this in your house in case of an emergency. Even though the bleeding can be dangerous it will stop when the feather is pulled out, and you can know how to do that by asking an avian specialist. For care for your bird going to a vet is fine but it is even better to go to an avian specialist because they know all about birds and are trained just for birds so they will know more than your average vet will know about your parrot.[9]
Interacting with your parrot is really important because when you need to know if it is okay you will be able to tell when it is sick or not. You will be able to tell what it like to play with or what it likes to eat. The bird will also form a bond with you and will trust you more than anyone else.[9]
References
- ↑ .Psittaciformes Wikispecies. Web. Last Modified October 28, 2014. Author Uknown.
- ↑ Perry, Jon. What makes a parrot a parrot? Functioning Design. Web. Accessed January 4, 2015.
- ↑ Rupley. [1] Saunders Co. Web. Accessed January 25, 2015.
- ↑ . Parrots Google publisher. Web. last access January 7,2015 Author unknown.
- ↑ .[2] Wikimedia Foundation. Web. last modified December 30,2014.
- ↑ .[3] 2015 I-5 Publishing, LLC. Web. Posted on August 21, 2012 .
- ↑ .[4] Word Press Admin. Web. Accessed on January 26, 2015.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Basic Bird Care Guide Advin Systems. Web. January 25, 2015 access, Author Unknown.
