White Cockatoo - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The White Cockatoo was first described in 1776 by German zoologist Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller. Its species name alba is a Latin adjective for "white". It lies in the subgenus Cacatua within the genus Cacatua. The term "white cockatoo" has also been applied as a group term to members of the genus Cacatua.

While psittaciform parrots and cockatoos have many common anatomical attributes like zygodactyl feet and hooked bills, the cockatoos and parrots diverged from the ancestral parrots as separate lineages as early as 45 MYA (fossil record) or 65 MYA (molecular analysis) (Wright 2008) during the period when Australia, South America and Antartica were breaking away from the super-continent Gondwanaland where the ancestral parrots were believed to have evolved.

Though historically they (White Cockatoos as well as related species) have been referred to as "white parrots", taxonomically they are not considered to be true parrots.