The rose-fronted parakeet, also known as the red-crowned parakeet, or, in aviculture, the rose-fronted conure, is a species of parrot in the familyPsittacidae. It is found in the western Amazon basin in eastern Peru, far south-eastern Ecuador, north-western Bolivia and far western Brazil. It includes the wavy-breasted parakeet, also known as the wavy-breasted conure, which sometimes is considered a separate species.
Description
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, a grey-scaled chest, a whitish or dull yellow patch on the auriculars and bluish remiges. The forehead, ocular region and carpal edge are red in the nominate race. Its bare eye-ring is typically dark greyish bordered by yellowish-white. The remaining subspecies, P. r. peruviana and P. r. dilutissima, lack any bright red in their plumage, but most of their crown and ocular region are very dark brownish-maroon, while the forecrown is blue. Their eye-ring is grey. All races have dark grey legs.
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 fairly common in most of its range and occurs in several protected areas, e.g. ManúNational Park.
Taxonomy
It has typically been considered a subspecies of the painted parakeet. While reviewing this group, Joseph discovered that an undescribed population existed in northern Peru. It was described as Pyrrhura peruviana. It was further recommended that P. roseifrons should be considered a monotypic species instead of a subspecies of P. picta. Ribas et al. confirmed by mtDNA that P. roseifrons should be considered a species separate from P. picta, but also showed that peruviana was very close to, and therefore arguably better considered a subspecies of, P. roseifrons. Consequently, SACC voted to recognizeP. roseifrons as a species with peruviana as a subspecies. Arndt recently described another taxon from this complex, dilutissima, as a subspecies of P. peruviana, but under the here used taxonomy, it becomes a subspecies of P. roseifrons. The taxonomic status in relations to Bonaparte's parakeet and the so-called "group 6" remains unclear. Arndt recently described the latter as a distinct species, P. parvifrons, but this has yet to receive widespread recognition.
