Cape or Un-cape?

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Tell me more about these guys. Is Truman the only one among us? We checked out a new bird store (new for us, that is) and my husband is quite enchanted with the male cape we visited. Info seems fairly rare, but what is written makes them sound like the perfect parrot. I didn't think it was likely we'd wind up with a Poi... maybe it's contagious?

Also, what's the deal with their being called "Cape" parrots sometimes and "Un-cape" parrots another? Is this a political thing or ????

[Michael]

Told you they're the best, why do you think I got one?

I'm preparing to write a very detailed article about this cape vs uncape mess with research and details. But for now, briefly, here's what I've come to learn about it:

Money is good.
Scientists like money.
Scientists get money grants when they propose interesting research.
Conservations societies can also get money by creating protection efforts.
There exist 3 subspecies of the Cape Parrot, Poicephalus Robustus:
P. r. robustus, P. r. fuscicollis, P. r. suahlicus

Robustus is nominate and known as Cape Parrot, Fuscicollis is also known as Brown-Necked Parrot (Not to be confused with Brown-Headed Parrot), and Suahelicus is known as Grey-Headed Parrot (not to be confused with Grey Parrot).

P. Robustus Robustus lives in small high altitude region of South Africa and is becoming quite endangered with remaining populations estimated to be no more than several thousand. A few scientists got some South African government grants and conservation society grants to manipulate some wording to be able to name the P. r. robustus a separate species so that it could be considered an endangered species. The other subspecies are doing pretty well and messing up the overall classification. Imagine a good neighborhood with one square block of poverty and trying to separate that into a different township so that it could be considered in poverty and receive special funding.

They proposed two new species of Capes:

P. Robustus and P. Fuscicollis (which would contain the Fuscicollis and Suahilicus subspecies) in order to be able to declare Poicephalus Robustus an endangered species. Most of the evidence they used was based on minute variations in physiology and dna analysis that demonstrated a slightly bigger divergence between p.r.r from p.r.f and p.r.s.. While some scientists jumped on the band wagon and supported the species split so they could get this thing called "money" too, Cites did not buy it and rejects the claim that the two are different species. Based on the evidence given for splitting the species (and the scientists literally said in the paper that the main reason they want to split the species is for the sake of conservation), it is not convincing (based on the definition of a species as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring). Furthermore I have heard rumors of successful/viable mixing of the species but have not found any written evidence to support or reject this.

Finally the breeders in the US jumped on the bandwagon and started calling them uncapes. You see the P.r.r is not bred domestically and the breeders decided it would be bad rap to claim they are breeding "cape parrots" which are thought to be critically endangered. So the clarify that they are breeding a different, non-endangered sort of parrot, they started calling them uncapes. Basically this is a load of politics and quite likely will change when the money pays to go the other way. All of the above is what I've learned from my breeder, the process of looking into getting a cape, and reading several scholarly essays on the topic and discussing with a psychologist/evolutionist. When I can get some more research in (my hardest part has been to acquire some of the papers I need for evidence cause they are published in discreet and very rare journals), I will write my own take on the situation and why I insist on calling Truman a Cape Parrot, Poicephalus Robustus Fuscicollis.

I think this ridiculous naming debate is counter productive and forces people to argue about subtle technicalities rather than doing something more meaningful. I have found it very frustrating because as I was considering getting a Cape I was extremely confused because some insist on using the new taxa while others hold onto the original. Really the original taxa is the predominantly accepted one but the proponents of the change are the ones being most vocal and pretending the new one is undisputed. This makes it twice as hard to get info. For the period between when I ordered my Cape and receiving him, I purely assumed that he was a Brown Headed Parrot, Poicephalus Fuscicollis Fuscicollis. However, upon reading some of these papers and talking to more people, I realized that this is a completely open case and until someone can prove to me that P. r. f. is incapable of producing viable offspring with P. r. r, I will remain skeptical of the politically motivated information.

PS I made a nice little map on http://poicephalus.org to show their native range.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Interesting, thanks! We may go visit this guy again tomorrow. Feeling A little bad about the 'too, but I think that may have been too much project for us.

[thejoie]

I have a female Cape parrot, she'll be 5 months old at the end of August. She is the perfect bird. She just understands me- it sounds weird but she's been home for almost 6 weeks and she is so in tune with how I'm feeling. We bonded instantly. She is playful and loves to be on me. She'll bring me toys to play with like a dog! But then she also loves playing on her own. She can spend HOURS on her climbing net. She destroys toys like it's her job. She enjoys her food. She's UNPHASED by the world: barking dogs? no problem! new people? She steps up immediately. Harness? Suuure! She looooves being talked to. She's picked up speech and mimicking more and more things daily. She cracks me up with how physical she is with her toys. She hands upside down flapping and squawking at them. Her noises in general are adorable and endearing. Her beak is so gentle. I just am absolutely IN LOVE with my baby girl. I went with a female Cape because I love that they keep the gorgeous coral colors and I've heard that females are easier to deal with during maturity than males. But of course, that's not a "set in stone" concept...
I can't say a negative thing about Capes. They are the perfect bird

[Rue]

Very interesting...always politics isn't it? Good write-up Michael!

BTW...I've had an irritating morning, so I'm inclined to nit-pick.

Genus and species/subspecies names are always either italicised (more modern) or underlined (old-fashioned, from when we only had typewriters for day-day use, but still acceptable.

Species/subspecies names are never capitalized.

So for example:

Incorrect: Poicephalus Robustus Robustus

Correct: Poicephalus robustus robustus or Poicephalus robustus robustus

Or if just using the initial for genus: P. robusutus or P. r. robustus

...and it gets even more complicated when we start adding authors, etc., but we can ignore that for our purposes...

[Azure Hanyo]

Very interesting...always politics isn't it? Good write-up Michael!

BTW...I've had an irritating morning, so I'm inclined to nit-pick.

Genus and species/subspecies names are always either italicised (more modern) or underlined (old-fashioned, from when we only had typewriters for day-day use, but still acceptable.

Species/subspecies names are never capitalized.

So for example:

Incorrect: Poicephalus Robustus Robustus

Correct: Poicephalus robustus robustus or Poicephalus robustus robustus

Or if just using the initial for genus: P. robusutus or P. r. robustus

...and it gets even more complicated when we start adding authors, etc., but we can ignore that for our purposes...

I think I love you!

[Rue]

LOL...another science geek?

[Michael]

Ok, I know that. Didn't I start by saying that this as a quick/informal mention of some of the stuff I've learned about them and that I have not yet had the chance to make my official write up? Sheesh.

[Kim S]

Ok, Could someone please put that large piece of scientific blabla into baby english for me?
I got lost....

Did I get this right? there are three subspecies of capes. One is endangered so they wanted to name that one an official species to protect it better.
After that it gets fuzzy....
They make one species out of the endangered one, and one out of the two that are left? The endangered one would be called the cape parrot and the others would be called 'something else'. But one of the 'something else' parrots is the one thats been bred for the pet industry. To make sure the pets are not confused with the endangered cape the breeders changed the name to un-cape.

I'm sory for being such a clutz.

[Michael]

Yes, that's basically it. You see why I'm frustrated with the whole name change now? It took me months of research to figure this all out and here I tried to condense it to give a picture of what's going on. The reason I use species names in my explanations is to standardize and avoid additional naming confusion.

Here is the original system:

Cape Parrot:
Poicephalus robustus robustus (South Africa)
Poicephalus robustus fuscicollis (West Africa)
Poicephalus robustus suahilicus (Middle Africa)



The proposed name change (which some act as though is set in stone, yet the IUCN has not accepted it and nor has most of the scientific community):

Cape Parrot:
Poicephalus robustus robustus becomes Poicephalus robustus (the only member of that species)

Uncape Parrot:
Poicephalus robustus fuscicollis becomes Poicephalus fuscicollis fuscicollis (the nominate of new species)
Poicephalus robustus suahilicus becomes Poicephalus fuscicollis suahilicus

The whole term uncape is completely fictitious and was introduced by American breeders to differentiate their breeding stock from the endangered "Cape Parrot" subspecies. There is no uncape term in scientific community at all.

All 3 subspecies of Poicephalus robustus are Cape Parrots.

The P. r. fuscicollis is proposed to become P. f. f. and then be called the Brown-Necked Parrot.
The P. r. suahilicus is proposed to become P. f. s. and then be called the Grey-Headed Parrot.
The P. r. robustus would then be the only parrot known as Cape Parrot.

The breeders who accepted the name change did not want to start calling their birds for sale Brown-Necked and Grey-Headed parrots because no one has ever heard of them except the scientists who contrived the names. So the breeders thought calling them UnCape would be a compromise to differentiate them from the endangered and not look bad for breeding such a parrot.

I say to hell with all the politics, I own a Brown-Necked Cape Parrot, Poicephalus robustus fuscicollis. The difference between the three subspecies of Cape Parrots is far less substantial than between a Congo and Timneh African Grey! Mainly it's a subtle difference in size and the hue of coloration on the head. We're talking slightly yellower vs slightly more orange tones. The size and color variations between CAG and TAG is far more drastic than any of the differences in Capes combined.

Does anyone here have access to a REALLY specialized avian journals library? I have a few specific citations that I'm looking for but NY Public and NYU libraries that I have access to do not have them.