Critically Endangered
Orange-bellied parrot
Neophema chrysogaster
With a wild population of less than 100 birds, it is rated as a critically endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List.
Appearance
The orange-bellied parrot is a small parrot around 20 cm (8 in) long. The adult male has bright green head, neck and upperparts, and yellow-green breast, abdomen and flanks. The feathers of the cheeks, neck and underparts are yellow-green with lime green tips and fringes, and hence appear more bright green when the bird has just moulted and more yellowish as the plumage wears. Feathers on the crown are bright green with darker green tips.
On the belly is an oval patch of orange around 2 cm in diameter. A small parrot around 20 cm (8 in) long, it exhibits sexual dimorphism.
Published measurements include mass about 45.9.
It was described by John Latham in 1790.
Range and habitat
One of three migratory parrot species, the orange-bellied parrot breeds solely in South West Tasmania, it nests in eucalypts bordering on button grass moors, generally within 30 km of the coast. On the way, they may stop (and occasionally overwinter on) King Island, particularly Lake Flannigan. The few mainland sites are estuaries and lagoons that contain their favoured salt marsh habitat and are generally within 3 km of the coast.
The orange-bellied parrot breeds in Tasmania and winters on the coast of southern mainland Australia, foraging on saltmarsh species, beach or dune plants and a variety of exotic weed species. In May 2011, media attention focussed on the 10 individuals transferred by aircraft from Tasmania to Healesville Sanctuary near Melbourne, that was described as a last-ditch effort to save the species from extinction.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
In the breeding season, males feed and forage constantly to supply their mates with food while incubating, and both parents do so to feed their young. Early in the breeding season, they prefer areas that were burnt 7 to 15 years previously, while by mid-breeding season, they seek out areas that are 3 to 5 years post fire.
In the wild, the orange-bellied parrot tends to be monogamous, though a bird will seek a new mate if its old one has died. Even so, males can mate with multiple females in captivity.
In crisis
With a wild population of less than 100 birds, it is rated as a critically endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List. Even so, the species has slowly began to recover, having gone from a wild population of just 14 birds in early February 2017 to 91 birds in November 2025. The captive population consists of around 300 birds, with a target of 350 birds by 2016–17.
Because of the decline in the wild population in recent years, an additional 21 birds from the wild population were captured in 2010–11 to improve the genetic diversity of the species' captive breeding program. The 2016–17 breeding season saw the wild population drop to 16 confirmed individuals—13 males and 3 females.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Orange-bellied parrot is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Orange-bellied parrot, Wikidata item Q1071681. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
