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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rasmus Boegh" data-source="post: 1205188" data-attributes="member: 1146">The one he refers to as the "Southern Wavy-breasted Parakeet" may indeed be a new taxon, but that is essentially based on its distribution rather than any confirmed differences in plumage or genetics. The "Yurimaguas Painted Parakeet" could be a new taxon, or just a hybrid. It is, btw, feature in several books, as it was considered typical lucianii until Joseph, 2002, was published. While that paper did solve a few issues in regards of taxon limits, he was overly optimistic in regards of species (any paper that results in nothing but monotypic species should be double-checked by anyone considering the BSC the standard). This is pretty evident when reading Ribas et al., 2006, where it was suggested that several species split by Joseph in 2002 should be re-lumped. This, among others, involve peruviana and roseifrons, thus greatly diminishing the chance that Southern Wavy-breasted Parakeet actually should be a new species (while the chance of it being a new ssp. remains unchanged). The taxon lucianii wasn't sampled in the newer paper, but I'd be unsurprised if it belonged with peruviana and roseifrons, thereby also greatly diminishing the chance that the "Yurimaguas Painted Parakeet" represents a new species.If just looking at ssp's then there are unresolved populations within the Amazona ochrocephala complex (see Eberhard and Bermingham, 2004), and A. aestiva complex (see Areta, 2007). Regarding the latter, however, I'd add that the variation within A. aestiva is far more complex than generally described, and I really wouldn't be surprised if it was better considered a highly variable - but monotypic - species. This is further confused by aviculture, where two main types are considered representative for the two described subspecies, but, as a fast google search reveals, a fair percentage of those referred to as xanthopteryx have a massive yellow shoulder that is rather unrepresentative of "true" xanthopteryx. Additionally, variation in facial pattern has been underestimated, not only in Argentina (as dealt with in Areta, 2007), but also in Brazil, though in fairness it should be added that some of this could be age-related. The fact that escapees are rather frequent even within its range, and some of the escapees have managed to establish populations e.g. in parts of Brazil, doesn't exactly help when trying to establish the nature of the intraspecific variations. Some uncertainty also exists regarding the Aratinga pertinax discovered a few years ago along the Rio Solimões in far western Brazil, and the possibility that they represent an undescribed subspecies remains.</blockquote>

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