Endangered
Blue-backed parrot
Tanygnathus everetti
The blue-backed parrot, also known as Müller's (or Mueller's) parrot and Burbridge's parrot (for the Sulu subspecies) is a large, endangered species of parrot endemic to the Philippines.
Appearance
It is of medium size (32 cm), primarily green with yellowish edging to the wings, a blue rump, and blue wing bends. The head, mantle, wings and tail are darker green, the belly and collar are lighter green. It is sexually dimorphic, with the male having a red beak and the female a pale yellow or horn colored beak.
Range and habitat
Very little is known about the ecology of the species, albeit it is likely to occur in similar habitats to the Azure-rumped parrot. The species may therefore occur across tropical, lowland, and montane forests, as well as mangrove swamps and degraded forests being most common below 500 meters above sea level. The blue-backed parrot, also known as Müller's (or Mueller's) parrot and Burbridge's parrot (for the Sulu subspecies) is a large, endangered species of parrot endemic to the Philippines.
Instate biodiversity reserves or protected areas across the watersheds and mineral reserves of Dinagat Islands, where large parrots have previously been observed. It is only confirmed present in one protected area, Samar Island Natural Park, and while protected on paper, deforestation and poaching continues.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Often found in Leptospermum and Ficus trees where they feed. Otherwise diet is unknown but presumed to be similar to Blue-naped parrot that feeds on fruits and seeds.
Reported breeding on Samar on April.
In crisis
It is found in tropical moist lowland forest but is now feared locally extinct in a large part of its range among them Negros, Panay, Leyte, Luzon and Polilio. The only recent records are in Samar, Mindanao and Tawi-tawi with the population being estimated below 250 individuals. Its main threats are habitat loss and trapping for the pet trade.
It is illegal to hunt, capture or possess blue-backed parrots under Philippine Law RA 9147. IUCN has assessed this bird as endangered with population estimates of 250–999 mature individuals remaining.
Blue-backed parrot is 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 Blue-backed parrot, Wikidata item Q41023008. 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.
