Parrots also known as psittacines

Parrots, also known as psittacines ,The birds are roughly 372 species in 86 genera.Parrots found in most warm and tropical regions. The order is subdivided in three families: the Psittacidae the Cacatuidae and the Strigopidae .Parrots have a pan-tropical distribution with several species inhabiting the temperate Southern Hemisphere as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is found in South America and Australasia. Characteristic features of parrots include a strong curved bill, an upright stance, strong legs, and clawed zygodactyl feet. Cockatoo species range from mostly white to mostly black, and have a mobile crest of feathers on the top of their heads. Most parrots are meromorphic or minimally sexually dimorphic. They are the most variably sized bird order in terms of length.

Distribution
Parrots are found on all tropical and subtropical continents including Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, South Asia, southeast Asia, southern regions of North America, South America and Africa. Some Caribbean and Pacific islands are home to endemic species. By far the greatest number of parrot species come from Australasia and South America. The lories and lorikeets range from Sulawesi and the Philippines in the north to Australia and across the Pacific as far as French Polynesia, with the greatest diversity being found in and around New Guinea. The subfamily Arin encompasses all the Neotropical parrots, including the Amazons, macaws and conures, and range from northern Mexico and the Bahamas to Tierra del Fuego in the southern tip of South America. The pygmy parrots, subfamily Micropsittinae, are a small genus restricted to New Guinea. The subfamily Nestorinae are three species of aberrant parrots from New Zealand. The broad-tailed parrots, subfamily Platycercinae, are restricted to Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands as far as Fiji. The final true parrot subfamily, Psittacinae, includes a range of species from Australia and New Guinea to the species found in South Asia and Africa. The centre of cockatoo biodiversity is Australia and New Guinea, although some species reach the Solomon Islands, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Diet

The diet of parrots consists of seeds, fruit, nectar, pollen, buds, and sometimes insects eg cockroaches and to a lesser degree animal prey.The evolution of the large and powerful bill can be explained primarily as an adaptation to opening and consuming seeds. All true parrots except the Parquet's Parrot employ the same method to obtain the seed from the husk; the seed is held between the mandibles and the lower mandible crushes the husk, whereupon the seed is rotated in the bill and the remaining husk is removed. A foot is sometimes used to help holding large seeds in place. Parrots are seed predators rather than seed dispersers; and in many cases where species are recorded as consuming fruit they are only eating the fruit to get at the seed. As seeds often have poisons to protect them, parrots are careful to remove seed coats and other fruit parts which are chemically well defended, prior to ingestion. Many species in the Americas, Africa, and Papua New Guinea consume clay which both releases minerals and absorbs toxic compounds from the gut.The lories and lorikeets, Swift Parrot and Philippine Hanging Parrot are primarily nectar and pollen consumers, and have tongues with brush tips to collect this source of food, as well as some specialized gut adaptations to accommodate this diet