Brown-necked Parrot

The brown-necked parrot (Poicephalus fuscicollis), sometimes known in aviculture as the uncape parrot, is a large Poicephalus parrot species endemic to Africa. It consists of two subspecies: the savanna-dwelling brown-necked parrot (P. fuscicollis fuscicollis) and grey-headed parrot (P. f. suahelicus) subspecies. It formerly included the Cape parrot (now Poicephalus robustus) as a subspecies before the Cape parrot was re-classified as a distinct species. == Taxonomy == German naturalist Heinrich Kuhl described the brown-necked parrot in his 1819 work Conspectus Psittacorum. Although unsure of its country of origin, he felt it was definitely a distinct species and related to the Cape parrot. The species name is from the Latin words fuscus "dark" and collum "neck". South Africa-based ornithologist Phillip Clancey proposed the Cape and brown-necked parrots were separate species in 1997 based on the shape and size of the bill, head coloration and preferred habitat. Mike Perrin observed that species status would facilitate protection of the endangered Cape parrot. Genetic analysis of the three taxa published in 2015 supported the distinctness of brown-necked and cape parrots, showing that ancestors of the two had diverged between 2.13 and 2.67 million years ago—in the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene epoch. This period was…