Macaw
A macaw is a New World parrot. Some of the species are large birds, the largest of the parrots. Macaws are native to Mexico, Central America, South America, and formerly the Caribbean.
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| A Scarlet macaw in flight | |
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Macaws, like all parrots, are unusually intelligent birds. The usual thing for parrots is to pair for life. They stay together even out of the mating season. They often fly in formation, one above the other.
Diet and clay licks
Macaws eat a variety of foods including seeds, nuts, fruits, palm fruits, leaves, flowers, and stems. Wild species may forage widely, over 100 km (62 mi) for some of the larger species such as Ara araurana (blue & yellow macaw) and Ara ambigua (great green macaw), in search of seasonally available foods.
In the western Amazon, hundreds of macaws and other parrots descend to exposed river banks to lick clay almost daily,[1] – except on rainy days.[2]
It was suggested that parrots and macaws in the Amazon basin eat clay from exposed river banks to neutralize toxins.[3]
The clay eating behavior of parrots was studied at clay licks in Peru. Apparently, macaws and other birds and animals prefer clays with higher levels of salt.[4] Sodium is a vital element which is scarce in environments over 100 kilometers from the ocean.[5]
Macaw Media
Glaucous macaw (behind hyacinth macaw) and other macaws
From L to R: scarlet macaw, blue-and-yellow macaw, and military macaw
Blue-and-yellow macaw (left) and blue-throated macaw (right)
The Brazilian coast in the 1502 Cantino planisphere, possibly the earliest European depiction of macaws
Blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna)
Military macaw (Ara militaris)
Wing clipped scarlet macaws (Ara macao)
Golden-collared macaw (Primolius auricollis)
Hyacinth Macaw
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Related pages
References
- ↑ Munn C.A. 1994. Macaws: winged rainbows. National Geographic, 185, 118–140.
- ↑ Brightsmith D.J. 2004. Effects of weather on parrot geophagy in Tambopata, Peru. Wilson Bulletin. 116, 134–145.
- ↑ Gilardi J.D. 1996. Ecology of parrots in the Peruvian Amazon: habitat use, nutrition, and geophagy. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California at Davis, Davis, California
- ↑ Powell et al. 2009. Parrots take it with a grain of salt: available sodium content may drive collpa (clay lick) selection in southeastern Peru. Biotropica 41(3):279–282.
- ↑ On the biogeography of salt limitation
Other websites
- [1] Archived 2013-12-01 at the Wayback Machine