Total length c.. As other members of the Pyrrhura picta complex, it is a long-tailed mainly green parakeet with a dark red belly, rump and tail-tip, pale grey scaling to the chest, a whitish or dull buff patch on the auriculars and bluish remiges. The cheeks and crown are dark dusky-maroon. Unlike other members of the P. picta complex, it lacks any bright red or blue to the head. The legs are dark greyish.
It occurs in tropical humid lowland forest and adjacent habitats. It is social and typically seen in pairs or groups. It feeds on fruits, seeds and flowers. The nest is placed in a tree cavity. It is likely to be fairly common within its range, but generally very poorly known, as the remote region where it occurs rarely is visited by ornithologists.
Taxonomy
It has typically been considered a subspecies of Pyrrhura picta. As with most other taxa in the P. picta complex, Joseph recommended that lucianii should be recognized as a monotypic species, P. lucianii. Ribas et al. did not include lucianii in their study, but did find that P. picta was closer to some members of the P. leucotis complex than to the various taxa found mainly south of the Amazon River and traditionally considered as subspecies of it. Consequently, Ribas et al. recommended that the westAmazonian taxa and the east Amazonian taxa should be considered two separate species. Based on biogeography, it therefore becomes unlike that P. lucianii is a subspecies of P. picta, but the possibility that it is better regarded as conspecific with either P. amazonum or P. roseifronscannot be discounted on basis of current knowledge. P. lucianii was described before both P. amazonum and P. roseifrons, meaning that they, if one of these scenarios was found to be correct, would become subspecies of P. lucianii. SACC voted to recognizeP. lucianii as a species. Another problem relates to the population of the P. picta complex from far north-easternPeru. These individuals with red to the forecrown have often been regarded as typical of P. lucianii. Joseph found that this was incorrect, with true P. lucianii being restricted to Brazil and lacking any bright red to the head. The taxonomic position of the population in far north-eastern Peru, labelled as "group 6" by Joseph, therefore remains unclear, it having been speculated that it could be a distinct species, a subspecies of either P. roseifrons or P. lucianii, a hybrid between the P. roseifrons and P. lucianii, or a hybrid between the currently recognized subspecies of P. roseifrons. Arndt recently argued for treating it as a distinct species, which he described as P. parvifrons, but this has yet to receive widespread recognition.
