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Poicephalus

Macaws, Cockatoos, Greys, Poicephalus, Conures, Lovebirds, Parrotlets, Parakeets etc. Discuss topics related to specific species of parrots and their characteristics, mutations, pros, and cons.

Poicephalus

Postby Michael » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:40 pm

Poicephalus is the genus that senegal, meyers, red bellied, and cape parrots belong to. However, other kinds of parrots often have a non-scientific categorization assigned to them such as conures and macaws. They span multiple genera but are usually united by similar features and habitats. What would be the equivalent categorization for poicephalus parrots? What is the closest related parrot to poicephalus parrots? I think they are lovebirds, right? Then the grays?

One conure, two conures : One poicephalus, two...?
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Re: Poicephalus

Postby Mona » Sun Oct 25, 2009 3:13 pm

I don't know Michael. They are doing a lot of DNA research these days to classify parrots and getting surprising results.

My personal theory (which is just my personal theory) is that Pois are closely related to caiques. I imagine that before we had continental drift, they were the same species. Poi's took over Africa and Caiques got Central America....Of course, that is probably nonsense but to me, they seem pretty similar.

BTW...I just finished reading the second edition of Mattie Sue Athan and Dianalee Deter's "Guide to the Senegal Parrot". It seemed that there was a better allowance for flight in this edition (although I should go back and look at the first edition). It wasn't so hardcore in terms of clipping. It was a good read....One thing I kindof question is their recommendation to keep Poi's as "only members of the same species". It isn't my experience. I have three and they pretty much do fine. I wonder if flight has any thing to do with that?

Thanks.
Mona in Seattle
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Re: Poicephalus

Postby Michael » Sun Oct 25, 2009 6:29 pm

I don't see how Caiques could be considered related to Poicepahlus. Are you just going by their similar size and colored head?

You see, Poicephalus parrots are part of the Psittacini tribe. Meanwhile Caiques are from the Arini tribe which comprises new world parrots like conures and macaws.

Parrots existed prior to the break up of Gondwanaland in the late Cretaceous period so it is highly probable that common ancestors became geographically separated during the continental divide (1). Furthermore a greater genetic divide formed between Psittacidae and Cacatuidae not only as a result of the break off of Australia from the supercontinent but also from the greater geographical separation from the South America-Africa parrots because those two continents were land locked (2).

Psittaciforme ancestry thus appears to go back about 100 million years. What is kind of freaky is that it is likely parrots existed well before T.Rex ever came about about 67 million years ago (3). Although it is unlikely that parrots lived in the same environments as Tyrannosaurs Rex at the time, it is quite likely that parrots coexisted with local land based dinosaurs in Gandwana (what is now Africa, South America, and Australia). Furthermore parrots are one of the earlier branched off lineages of birds that are still present to this day.

Image

By 80 million years ago, you can observe a significant break up of Gondwanaland and interchange of species was becoming difficult if not impossible by this point. Remember that parrots are non-migratory birds and would not travel divides much larger than this. Therefore they settled and became separated into 3 main regions of South American, African, and Australian parrots.

Image

Neornithes are the line of modern birds and parrots originate from the line of Neoaves. I outlined the lineage you can find parrots coming from.

So to answer your question, it is actually quite impossible that Caiques have any sort of close relation with poicephalus parrots and any similarities are the result of convergent evolution.

So when you think of what these little creatures had to live with (big scary dinosaurs) it's no wonder why they are so hardy, smart, and developed! :mrgreen:


(1) http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... 25/10/2141
(2) http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2 ... _of_pa.php
(3) http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-onlin ... annosaurus
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Re: Poicephalus

Postby Natacha » Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:49 pm

Mona wrote:One thing I kindof question is their recommendation to keep Poi's as "only members of the same species".


:lol:
I kinda question that as well....
My blog http://poiworld.blogspot.com/
Videos of my birds http://www.youtube.com/user/poicephaluslady
Piper ~ Lovebird
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Re: Poicephalus

Postby Mona » Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:29 pm

Okay...Okay..Okay...

I based my opinion on the fact that both species bite and both kindof like to hang around on the ground....but I think your argument might be a bit more comprehensive than mine ;)
Mona in Seattle
Phinneous Fowl (aka Phinney) TAG
Babylon Sengal
Doug (spousal unit)
Jack and Bailey (Gremlins)
Kiri (CAG)
http://www.flyingparrotsinside.com

youtube: Avian Flyers
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