Scarlet macaw

The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) is a large yellow, red and blue Neotropical parrot native to humid evergreen forests of the Americas. Its range extends from southeastern Mexico to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil in lowlands of (at least formerly) up to , the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as well as the Pacific island of Coiba. Formerly, the northern extent of its range included southern Tamaulipas. In some areas, it has suffered local extinction because of habitat destruction, or capture for the parrot trade, but in other areas, it remains fairly common. It is the national bird of Honduras. Like its relative the blue-and-yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw is a popular bird in aviculture as a result of its striking plumage. The scarlet macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Psittacus macao. The scarlet macaw is now placed in the genus Ara (Lacépède, 1799), one of 6 genera of Central and South American macaws. The two subspecies can be recognized by size and color detail in the feathers on the wings: Ara macao macao (Linnaeus, 1758): South American scarlet macaw, the nominate subspecies. In the wings the medium and secondary coverts have green tips. A. m. cyanopterus Wiedenfeld, 1995: North Central American scarlet macaw. The Central American scarlet macaw is larger and has blue on its wings instead of green. In May 2013, it was announced that a team of scientists, led by Dr. Christopher M. Seabury and Dr. Ian Tizard of Texas A&M University had sequenced the complete genome of the scarlet macaw. Based on this genome, species-specific microsatellite genetic markers were developed to aid genetic studies throughout the range of the species. These genetic markers were later validated on the trace amount of DNA acquired from feathers, and applied to study red-and-green macaws in a tropical landscape where DNA can degrade very quickly.