Welcome to Animal Wonders!
Today, we're going to meet some of our amazing animal ambassadors.
We're gonna learn about their group, we're going to talk about why it's confusing sometimes
to classify animals, and we're going to talk a little bit about the terms we use.
So, what do you think of when you hear the word "conure"?
If you thought "LOUD", you are so right.
But, if you didn't even hear the word before, you're me, ten years ago.
This, is a conure!
A green-cheeked conure to be exact, or you can call her a green-cheek parakeet.
I just call her Ginger.
And this is where the complication of classifying starts.
The word "conure" is both an old term and a new term.
It's an old, out-of-date classification for a genus of parrot-like New World birds and
it was called conurus.
"New World" just means the Americas.
Now, the previous genus conurus included some present-day genera that has now been broken
apart into more specific groups.
Today, the term is used mostly in aviculture, which is the keeping and breeding of birds
in captivity.
And I use the term because that's how it was first introduced to my many Central and South
American psittacine friends.
But it also helps me explain the difference in the groups.
So, I've heard of parrots and parakeets before, but what the heck was a conure?
This [bird squawks loudly] is a conure!
This is a Jenday conure or a Jendaya parakeet-- both terms are correct.
I call her Ecuador.
Now Jenday conures are closely related to Sun conures and they're very popular in the
pet trade.
But they are very very vocal.
Oh!
I soon discovered these birds were one of the most neglected and re-homed groups in
the animal rescue world.
The more I learned about the individual personalities of the birds that I got to rescue, my fascination
with these overly exploited and underappreciated group of birds grew.
And the more I tried to define what a conure was, the more complicated it seemed to get.
So most people that see a bird with a curved beak - you can do it-- oh! --and bright feathers
say, "That's a parrot," and they're correct.
So here's how it goes: all parrot-like birds belong to the order Psittaciformes.
But then there are families that break them down into smaller groups.
The three main families are Psittacidae, Psittaculidae and Cacatuidae.
The family Psittacidae includes birds like macaws and parrots and conures and parakeets.
The family Psittaculidae includes birds like love birds and loris and other Old World parrots.
And then the family Cacatuidae includes cockatoos and cockatiels and others.
So what makes a conure different form a parrot?
Well they're not really different.
They're just more specific.
So, this is a parrot-- [bird squeals].
This is Zoe.
She's a red-lored Amazon parrot, and you can look at her-- [bird squawks] --and you can
see that she has a very heavy body; and her tail-- [bird says "pretty pretty pretty pretty"]
--her tail is very squared at the bottom.
Would you like another treat?
No?
Ok.
But, then you look at-- [bird squawks] --at Loulou, the half-moon conure, you can see
he has a more slender body, and his tail is tapered or cone-shaped.
And you can see a big difference in [bird squawks] not just their size, but the shape
of their body.
So if you look at Loulou and Ecuador, and ignore the coloration on their feathers, just
look at the characteristics on their body.
Both of them have a hooked bill, curved in a very similar way.
They have long, tapered tails which are about the same length as their body.
They have short feet, and their toe arrangement is zygodactyl, which is two toes in the front
and two toes in the back.
And if you look up at their eyes, they both have a bare patch surrounding their eye.
So the group of conures are made up of quite a few different genera.
The main two are Pyrrhura and Aratinga.
These two are both in the Aratinga genus, and Aratinga means "mini macaw."
Speaking of, this, is a macaw!
This is Joy, and she's a blue and gold macaw-- You so excited?
--now you can see she's much larger than Lulu and Equador, but she has similar characteristics
in her body.
You can see that she has almost a slender body, and this long, tapered tail that's pretty
much the same length as her body.
So we met three conures, a parrot, and now a macaw.
But what's the difference between a parakeet and a conure?
Well, this is a parakeet.
His name is Zapper.
He's an Alexandrian parakeet, or, an Alexandrian parrot.
He can't be considered a conure even though he has a long, tapered tail and the slender
body of a conure.
He is found in India, Thailand, and Afghanistan, and surrounding areas.
So, he's considered an Old World parrot instead of a New World parrot.
He's also part of the family Psittaculidae, instead of Psittacidae.
So let's meet another conure.
This is Maui, and she's a color-morph with a green-cheek conure.
She's referred to as a pineapple green-cheek conure.
Note her long, slender tail and cone shape like that-- so she belongs to the parakeet
group --but she also lives in the New World so she can be defined as a conure.
So let's really classify her.
Her order is Psittaciformes, her family is Psittacidae, and then her genus is Pyrrhura,
as opposed to Aratinga, which was Lulu and Ecuador, the other one.
Now let's make things even more fun!
This is a parrotlet.
A Pacific parrotlet named Sprinkles, and he is a parrot, but not a parakeet.
Notice his heavy body set and his tail, when spread out, is going to look like a square,
very similar to our Amazon parrot Zoe.
And lastly, we have Boxer, the peach-faced lovebird.
He's not a conure, and he's not a parakeet.
He looks very similar to Sprinkles the parrotlet, but he is an Old World parrot.
Very small little parrot, but he does not belong to the family Psittacidae like Sprinkles
does, but he belongs to the family Psittaculidae, like Zapper our Alexandrian parakeet.
But, unlike Zapper, he's not a parakeet, he's a small parrot with a heavy body and a square
tail.
Alright guys, so to wrap this up, all conures are parrots, but not all parrots are conures.
All conures are parakeets, but not all parakeets are conures.
And all parakeets are parrots, but not all parrots are parakeets.
Make sense?
If you have any questions about all of that or anything else, you can find me on Twitter,
Tumblr, and Facebook.
You can find out all about animal wonders on our website, and don't forget to subscribe
to our YouTube channel and join us on an adventure every week.
[Bird squeaks]
Hey guys!
We had so many questions last time that we couldn't put into one episode!
So here we are making a second episode, and this is going to be called...
Ask Jesse 1.5!
And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.
Don't forget to sucri- subscribe to our YouTube channel [Laughs] and join us on an adventure
every week!