Monk parakeet

The monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus), also known as the Quaker parrot, is a species of true parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is a small, bright-green parrot with a greyish breast and greenish-yellow abdomen. Its average lifespan is 20–30 years. It originates from the temperate to subtropical areas of South America. Self-sustaining feral populations occur in many places, mainly in areas of similar climate in North America and Europe. The monk parakeet was described by French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783, Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Psittacus monachus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. As Buffon did not specify the origin of his specimen, in 1937 the American ornithologist James Peters assigned the type location as Montevideo, Uruguay. The monk parakeet is now placed in the genus Myiopsitta that was introduced by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1854. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek mus, muos meaning "mouse" and the Neo-Latin psitta meaning "parrot", alluding to the mouse-grey face and underparts. The specific epithet monachus is Late Latin for a "monk". The monk parakeet is one of two species in the genus Myiopsitta, the other being the cliff parakeet (Myiopsitta luchsi). The two parakeets were previously considered to be a single species. Due to morphological and behavioral differences, and geographical dissimilarities, the cliff parakeet has been elevated to species status. The cliff parakeet's altitudinal range apparently does not overlap, so is thus entirely, but just barely, allopatric. The American Ornithological Society has deferred recognizing the cliff parakeet as distinct "because of insufficient published data".