The blue-and-yellow macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus ararauna.[2] This macaw is now one of the eight extant species placed in the genus Ara that was erected in 1799 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède.[3][4] The genus name is from ará meaning "macaw" in the Tupi language of Brazil. The word is an onomatopoeia based on the sound of their call. The specific epithet ararauna comes from the Tupi Arára úna meaning "big dark parrot" for the hyacinth macaw.[5] The word ararauna had been used by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in 1648 in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.[6] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.[4]
blue and yellow macaw ara ararauna
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Little variation in plumage is seen across the range. Some birds have a more orange or "butterscotch" underside color, particularly on the breast. This was often seen in Trinidad birds and others of the Caribbean area. The blue-and-yellow macaw uses its powerful beak for breaking nutshells, and for climbing up and hanging from trees.[7] As well as nuts, it will also feed on seeds, fruits, vegetable matter, bark and leaves, also insects, snails and small animals.[8][9]
This species occurs in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. The range extends slightly into Central America, where it is restricted to Panama. While most breed in rural and forested areas, small numbers breed in urban cities such as Rondonópolis (Mato Grosso, Brazil), nesting in dead palms planted for ornamental purposes alongside city roads.[10] Although they were nearly wiped out in Trinidad due to human activity during the 1970s, a recent programme of reintroduction has proved successful. Between 1999 and 2003, wild-caught blue-and-yellow macaws were translocated from Guyana to Trinidad, in an attempt to re-establish the species in a protected area around Nariva Swamp;[11] despite this, the IUCN still lists them as extirpated from the country. A small breeding population descended from introduced birds is found in Puerto Rico,[1] and another has inhabited Miami-Dade County, Florida, since the mid-1980s.[12]
The blue-and-yellow macaw generally mates for life. They nest almost exclusively in dead palms and most nests are in Mauritia flexuosa palms. The female typically lays two or three eggs. The female incubates the eggs for about 28 days. One chick is dominant and gets most of the food; the others perish in the nest. Chicks fledge from the nest about 97 days after hatching. The male bird's color signals readiness for breeding. The brighter and bolder the colors, the better the chance of getting a mate.[13]
The blue-and-yellow macaw is on the verge of being extirpated in Paraguay, but it still remains widespread and fairly common in a large part of mainland South America. The species is therefore listed as Least Concern by BirdLife International. It is listed on CITES Appendix II, trade restricted.[1] Its current wild population is estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 individuals.[citation needed]
Even well-tended blue-and-yellow macaws are known to "scream" for attention, and make other loud noises. Loud vocalizations, especially "flock calls", and destructive chewing are natural parts of their behavior and should be expected in captivity. Due to their large size, they also require plentiful space in which to fly around. According to World Parrot Trust, an enclosure for a blue-and-yellow macaw should, if possible, be at least 15 m (50 ft) in length.[14] Captive macaws, kept with good diet, exercise, and veterinary care are known to have lived 60 or more years.[15] People considering a macaw as a companion parrot must be aware of this and consider that the bird may outlive the owner.
The blue-and-yellow macaw has been noted to blush its bare facial skin and fluff the feathers of its cheeks, head and nape when interacting with humans. This may be an expression of the parrot's emotional state.[16]
Like most macaws, the blue-and-gold macaw is capable of making loud, ear-piercing sounds and can be prone to bouts of screaming. You will not be able to hide this pet from a landlord, so understand the vocal abilities of this bird before you bring it home. There really is no way to make a screaming macaw cease and desist its vocalizations, especially around dusk, when parrots are most vocal. Blue-and-gold macaws are apt talkers, able to repeat simple words and phrases.
Like other parrots, blue & golds are prone to self-mutilation/feather plucking, and nutritional disorders, and a variety of diseases, including Macaw Wasting Syndrome, as well as overgrown beaks. A nutritionally balanced diet and regular veterinary health exams can help keep your blue-and-gold macaw healthy and thriving.
Both adults bright blue above, mostly golden-yellow below; with long blue and yellow tail; bare white facial disc with fine lines of green feathers; throat black; crown and forehead green. Large black/grey bill. Eye yellow.
Citation: Bertin A, Beraud A, Lansade L, Blache M-C, Diot A, Mulot B, et al. (2018) Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)? PLoS ONE 13(8): e0201762.
Although the Psittaciformes (parrots, cockatoos and lorikeets; called parrots hereafter for simplicity) provide some of the most impressive examples of animal colouration, the function of plumage in visual communication has been far less investigated in this order (for a review [7]. Two reasons may explain this: little or no sexual dimorphism in plumage colours (but see [8]) and the colour-production system unique to the animal kingdom. Parrots do not express carotenoid-based colouration (in which variation may convey information on mate quality) but a colouration based on a unique pigment class called psittacofulvins, which are not related to diet [9]. The implication of plumage in acquiring mates has received recent interest but remains poorly understood in parrots [10]. Complex visual threat displays are described in the parrot genus, Trichoglossus [11], and anecdotally in nesting blue-and-yellow macaws [12]. Moreover, to our knowledge, body feather use in social contexts unrelated to sexual selection or aggressive interactions remains overlooked in parrots.
Blue-and-yellow macaws are appropriate for such a study since their head is composed of mobile, coloured feathers on top of their crown and nape, mobile black lines of feathers on their cheeks and white bare skin. The bare skin is also of interest since blushing can be observed (rapid colour variation from white to red) but has not been studied in macaws. Much less research has been conducted on rapid changes in avian skin colouration. Blushing is reported in 12 different avian orders based on blood flow in vascularized tissues [22], but the function of this response remains unknown. In Lappet-faced vultures (Aegypius tracheliotos), facial blushing has been hypothesized to play a role in agonistic interactions [23]. Rapid changes in bare skin colour have also been anecdotally reported in the crested caracara (Caracara cheriway) when excited or stressed [24,25].
We observed five hand-reared blue-and-yellow macaws, not exposed to the public, at the Zooparc de Beauval Saint Aignan (41110, France). All birds are part of a free-flying show. The birds had been trained daily (i.e., handled daily) since weaning and were thus in close contact with humans, especially their caretakers. All the birds had fully adult-like plumage but were not yet sexually mature and did not express sexual or defensive behaviours. The five birds were housed in two adjacent aviaries of similar sizes with an indoor area (250 cm x 520 cm x 260 cm) freely connected to an outdoor area (250 cm x 850 cm x 260 cm). Three of the macaws were housed in aviary 1 (Table 1). The other two were housed in aviary 2 with a red macaw (Ara macao) and a yellow-crested cockatoo (Cacatua sulphurea citrinocristata). The aviaries were equipped with several tree branches, perches and ropes. Enrichment was provided daily (cardboard and journal paper). Parrots were fed daily with fresh fruits and vegetables, germinated seeds (wheat, corn, sunflower, rice, and oat), millet seeds, oyster shells, and a commercial mix for exotic birds.
The Blue-and-yellow Macaw, also known as the Blue-and-gold Macaw, is a large South American parrot with blue top parts and yellow under parts. It is a member of the large group of Neotropical parrots known as macaws.
Blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) ruffle their head feathers and blush to communicate visually, according to new research from the ZooParc de Beauval & Beauval Nature and the INRA Centre Val de Loire at the Université de Tours, France.
The blue-and-yellow macaw is a long-lived socially monogamous species, with male parental care. These biological traits are assumed to be correlated with low EPP rates (see Introduction). Once successfully fledged from the nest, macaws seem to have a high survival rate (Myers and Vaughan, 2004). Well-documented longevity records for macaws include a specimen of A. ararauna which was housed at the Copenhagen Zoo for 46 years (Brouwer et al., 2000). Therefore, the offspring of a single breeding season most likely represents a small proportion of the potential lifetime reproductive production. Any reduction in adult survival of long-lived species by the investment in raising current offspring, exerts a larger influence on lifetime reproductive success than in short-lived bird species (Masello et al., 2002). Thus, long-lived birds, such as macaws, are not expected to invest in broods of doubtful paternity (Mauck et al., 1999). However, the parents in both hyacinth (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus, N.M.R. Guedes, personal communication) and scarlet (Ara macao, D.J. Brightsmith, personal communication) macaws accept nestlings translocated from other broods, i.e. the social parents are unable to identify chicks from other pairs. In fact, this behavior, as observed in these two macaws, suggests selective inability in recognizing EPP offspring, thereby implying that EPP could be rare or nonexistent in these species. As A. macao and A. ararauna are phylogenetically related, it would be expected that A. ararauna parents are also unable to distinguish their own biological chicks from unrelated ones that are eventually in their nest. 2ff7e9595c
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