''Cyanoramphus'' is a genus of

parakeet A parakeet is any one of many small- to medium-sized species of parrot, in multiple genera, that generally has long tail feathers. Etymology and naming The name ''parakeet'' is derived from the French word ''perroquet'', which is reflect ...

s native to

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and islands of the southern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. The New Zealand species are locally called ''

kākāriki The three species of kākāriki (also spelled ''kakariki'', without macrons), or New Zealand parakeets, are the most common species of parakeets in the genus ''Cyanoramphus'', family (biology), family Psittaculidae. The most commonly used name ' ...

''. They are small to medium-sized parakeets with long tails and predominantly green

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

. Most species are forest dwellers, although several of the subantarctic species live in open grassland. The genus formerly had a widely disjunct distribution; while most of the genus ranged from

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

Macquarie Island Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Protected areas of Tasmania, Tasmania ...

, two species were found in the

Society Islands The Society Islands ( , officially ; ) are an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean that includes the major islands of Tahiti, Mo'orea, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country ...

, away from the rest. Like many other species of birds, the ''Cyanoramphus'' parakeets have suffered from changes brought about by humans. The two species from the Society Islands, the black-fronted parakeet and the Society parakeet, are now extinct, as are the taxa from

Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland Port ...

and

, and an undescribed Campbell Island form. One species, Malherbe's parakeet (''C. malherbi''), is

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

, while most other species are endangered or vulnerable. Habitat loss and

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

are considered responsible for the declines and extinctions. The genus ''Cyanoramphus'' was introduced in 1854 by French ornithologist

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist, and a nephew of Napoleon. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal ...

. The genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''kuanos'' meaning "dark-blue" and ''rhamphos'' meaning "bill". The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

was designated by English zoologist

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoology, zoologist and author, and head of the Ornithology, ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, London f ...

in 1855 as what is now the extinct black-fronted parakeet (''Cyanoramphus zealandicus'').

Species

Of the 11 recognised species, three are extinct: Also, subfossil remains have been found from a yet undescribed extinct species from Campbell Island, New Zealand.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Parrots Bird genera Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte