Manu Parrotlet - Taxonomy and Naming

Taxonomy and Naming

The Manu Parrotlet was discovered in 1985 by John P. O’Neill, Charles A. Munn, and Irma Franke while exploring the Manú River in the Manú National Park in eastern Peru. They noticed flock of small green parrots foraging on the forest floor, which resembled birds of the genus Forpus. However, they did not exhibit any sexual dimorphism and could not be assigned to any species recorded within the park or any nearby lowlands of eastern Peru. The new species was named after the scientists' colleague Barbara D’Achille, a conervationist and journalist of Latvian origin who fell victim to the internal conflict in Peru on May 31, 1989, while investigating conservation projects in Huancavelica Department. The Manu Parrotlet has been difficult to photograph or even locate subsequently, and was feared to have become extinct in the early 1990s, until recorded again in the mid 1990s.

In 1987 P. Marra and T. Meyer were on the banks of the Shesha when they collected two specimens from the Forpus, upon further investigation it was evident that these birds were not of the genus Forpus, but the same birds that O’Neill, Munn, and Franke discovered. After discovering that the Manu Parrotlet wasn’t a member of the genus Forpus, it was then reclassified in the genus Nannopsittaca.