Blue-eyed Cockatoo
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| Blue-eyed Cockatoo | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Cacatua ophthalmica Sclater, 1864 |
The Blue-eyed Cockatoo, Cacatua ophthalmica, is a large, approximately 50 cm (20 in) long, white cockatoo with an erectile yellow white crest, grey color beak and feet, and a light blue rim of featherless skin around each eye, that gives this species its name.
Both sexes appear very similar. Some males have a dark brown iris and some females have a reddish brown iris, but this small difference may not always be reliable as a gender indicator. They pair for life.
The Blue-eyed Cockatoo is distributed and endemic to lowland and hill forests of New Britain in Papua New Guinea, and it is the only cockatoo in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Like all cockatoos and many parrots, the Blue-eyed Cockatoo can use one of its zygodactyl feet to hold objects and to bring food to its beak whilst standing on the other foot; nevertheless, amongst bird species as a whole this is relatively unusual.
Formerly classified as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN[1], it was suspected to have become much rarer in recent times than it was generally assumed. Following the evaluation of its population size, this was found to be correct, and it is consequently uplisted to Near Threatened status in 2008[2].
The most successful captive breeding program for Blue-eyed Cockatoos is at Chester Zoo.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (BLI) (2004). Cacatua ophthalmica. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006.
- BirdLife International (BLI) (2008): [2008 IUCN Redlist status changes]. Retrieved 2008-MAY-23.
