Swift parrot
The swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) is a species of broad-tailed parrot, found only in southeastern Australia. The species breeds in Tasmania during the summer and migrates north to south eastern mainland Australia from Griffith-Warialda in New South Wales and west to Adelaide in the winter. It is a nomadic migrant, and it settles in an area only when there is food available. The Swift Parrot was voted 2023 Bird of the Year in The Guardian Australia and BirdLife Australia’s biennial poll.
| Swift parrot | |
|---|---|
| A visiting migrant in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Psittaciformes |
| Family: | Psittaculidae |
| Tribe: | Platycercini |
| Genus: | Lathamus Lesson, 1830 |
| Species: | L. discolor |
| Binomial name | |
| Lathamus discolor (Shaw, 1790) | |
| Distribution of the swift parrot From Atlas of Living Australia | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Psittacus discolor Shaw, 1790 | |
The species is critically endangered, and the severe predation of introduced sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) on breeding females and nests in some locations has demonstrated an unexpected but potentially serious new threat. Genetic evidence for the effective population size suggests that the minimum potential population size is now fewer than 300 individual swift parrots. This supports the results of earlier studies that use demographic information about swift parrots to predict that the species could be extinct by 2031.
Habitat for the critically endangered swift parrot is being “knowingly destroyed” by logging because of government failures to manage the species’ survival.