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Olive-throated Parakeet | Eupsittula nana
Olijfkeelaratinga | Perico pecho sucio
The Olive-throated Parakeet is a medium-sized green parakeet of the Caribbean lowlands, from eastern Mexico to western Panama. In much of its range it is the parakeet seen most often, frequently in noisy groups that fly fast over forest and farmland. A different subspecies lives on Jamaica.
Voice
Shrill, grating calls, a rapid kree-kree or kree-ek, repeated constantly in flight.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
23–26 cm, with a long, pointed tail. The upperparts are green, the throat and breast olive-brown, the belly more yellowish green. It has a narrow, bare, pale eye-ring. The primaries are partly blue, the underwing greyish. The bill is pale horn. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Orange-fronted Parakeet Eupsittula canicularis, mainly on the Pacific side, has an orange forehead and a green throat. Brown-throated Parakeet Eupsittula pertinax, in Panama mainly on the Pacific side, has a brown face with yellow around the eye. Green Parakeet Psittacara holochlorus and Pacific Parakeet Psittacara strenuus are larger and entirely green. Orange-chinned Parakeet Brotogeris jugularis is smaller, with a short tail and a brown shoulder patch.
Habitat
Humid and semi-deciduous lowland forest, forest edges, secondary forest, plantations and farmland with trees; mostly below 1100 m. It eats seeds, fruit and flowers, also in maize fields. It nests in tree cavities and often in termite nests.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
On the Caribbean side from southern Tamaulipas and eastern San Luis Potosí through Veracruz, northern Oaxaca, Tabasco, Chiapas and the Yucatán Peninsula to Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, reaching Bocas del Toro in western Panama; in Nicaragua also in the central highlands. Absent from El Salvador. Outside the guide area on Jamaica.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Belize, on the Yucatán Peninsula and in the Petén in Guatemala often in groups along roads and forest edges, for example at Tikal and Calakmul; in Costa Rica in the Caribbean lowlands of Sarapiquí and San Carlos.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Widespread and common in many places; locally trapped for the cage-bird trade.
Scientific name
Eupsittula nana | (Vigors, 1830) (GBIF: Aratinga nana)
Vigors described the species in 1830 as Psittacara nana; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eupsittula was introduced in 1853 by Bonaparte. Eupsittula combines Greek eu 'good, true' with Modern Latin psittacula 'little parrot': 'true parakeet'. nana is Latin for 'dwarf' (nanus), after its small size. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.