Sri Lanka hanging parrot

The Sri Lanka hanging parrot (Loriculus beryllinus) is a small parrot which is a resident endemic breeder in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka hanging parrot
Adult in Sri Lanka
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Psittaciformes
Family: Psittaculidae
Genus: Loriculus
Species:
L. beryllinus
Binomial name
Loriculus beryllinus
Forster, 1781

Description

The Sri Lanka hanging parrot is a small, mainly green hanging parrot, only 13 cm long with a short tail. The adult has a red crown and rump. The nape and back have on orange tint. The chin and throat are pale blue. The beak is red and the irises are white.[2]

Immature birds lack the orange hue to the back, have a duller rump, and have only a hint of orange on the crown. They have a faint blue throat. They have orange beaks and brown irises.[2]

Behaviour

Sri Lanka hanging parrot is less gregarious than some of its relatives, and is usually alone or in small groups outside the breeding season. Its flight is swift and direct, and the call is a sharp whistled twiwittwit..twitwitwit. It undergoes local movements, driven mainly by the availability of the fruit, seeds, buds and blossoms that make up its diet.

Sri Lanka hanging parrot is a bird of open forest. It is strictly arboreal, never descending to the ground. It nests in holes in trees, laying 2–3 eggs.

In culture

In Sri Lanka, this bird is known as Gira Maliththa - ගිරාමලිත්තා or Pol Girwa - පොල් ගිරවා in Sinhala language.[3] Hanging parrot appears in a 15c Sri Lankan postal stamp,[4] Also this bird appears in 1000 Sri Lankan rupee bank note (2010 series).[5]

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Loriculus beryllinus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Forshaw (2006). plate 46.
  3. Anonymous (1998). "Vernacular Names of the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent" (PDF). Buceros. 3 (1): 53–109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-04-01.
  4. Scharning, Kjell. "Birds on stamps: Sri Lanka". www.birdtheme.org.
  5. Archived 2017-08-03 at the Wayback Machine

Cited texts
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