Pesquet’s Parrot Facts

Pesquet’s Parrot Profile

If you took an African grey parrot, blackened its feathers and dipped it in blood you’d probably have something pretty much identical to the so-called Dracula parrot. 

Also known as the vulturine parrot, Pesquet’s parrot certainly has a bit of a demonic appearance, with blood-red plumage on its wings and belly, black elsewhere, and a featherless, ominous face.

This image isn’t done any favours by a disturbing set of vocalisations it’s often heard releasing. But this bird really isn’t as frightening as it might appear.

Pesquet’s Parrot Facts Overview

Habitat:	Hill and lower montane rainforests
Location:	New Guinea
Lifespan:	Up to 40 years
Size:	46 cm (18 in) long
Weight:	800g (28 oz)
Colour:	Dark grey or black with vivid red belly and wing panels
Diet:	Figs
Predators:	Humans
Top Speed:	Unknown
No. of Species:	1
Conservation Status:	Vulnerable (IUCN)

Pesquet’s Parrot is a striking parrot species from New Guinea with a scary look and an even scarier range of vocalisations.

Its bald face is likely a vulture-like adaptation to keep itself clean, but instead of carrion, this little bird is a ripe fruit specialist. 

Unlike many parrots, these birds stick to a very narrow diet and have adapted accordingly to this low-protein niche.

These are social animals, and like most parrots, are stubborn and strong-willed. Still, they’re in a bit of trouble from over-exploitation and could benefit from some intervention.  

Interesting Pesquet’s Parrot Facts

1. They growl

It’s bad enough that this bird evolved to look like it wants to drink your blood, but the frightening calls it’s capable of don’t help with the image. 

This is a bird whose “everything’s ok” alarm is a drawn-out scream as it’s in flight. It also has a standard harsh and rasping growl that it likes to employ while perched. 

This unsettling rattle could be described a bit like a bow being drawn ominously over the edge of a dry wooden board. And this creepy impression comes long before you’ve even had the chance to see one. ¹ 

2. They look a bit like vultures

The nickname “vulturine parrot” is well-earned, on account of the bird’s bald face. In vultures, this is to prevent a sticky build-up of rotting blood, faeces, entrails and other bodily juices getting all tangled in the feathers and festering. 

And in this parrot, it serves a similar function. The hooked beak is also a characteristic of this bird that gives it a murderous, flesh-tearing appearance, but curiously enough, this is evolution’s solution to a slightly different but similar problem. 

3. They’ve adapted to low-protein diets

Pesquet’s parrot is a very fussy eater. Unlike most species of parrots, this one has a strong speciality, but it’s not in carrion. This fearsome-looking bird is entirely vegetarian, more specifically, exclusively frugivorous, or fruit-eating.

And more specifically still, it restricts its diet to just a handful of species of fig. If there will be a garnish, it has been known to feed on a few flowers and a bit of nectar for dessert, but that’s about the range of this strange bird’s feeding habits. 

So, the hooked beak and featherless face are for cutting into super-ripe and sticky fruits and staying relatively clean afterwards. 

And in eating these figs, the bird’s bodily systems have evolved to deal with a distinct lack of protein. The requirements of this species for protein sit well below those of grain-eating or omnivorous birds and are more aligned with, though a little higher than, nectar-feeders like the hummingbirds. ²

4. They keep figs alive

Being massive fig-faces, it’s not surprising that these birds have an impact on their chosen species. It might be easy to think that the parrots exert a negative pressure on fig plants by eating them but in fact, it’s quite the opposite.  

As much as the parrots need the figs to survive, the figs need the parrots in equal measure, and the relationship between the two could be considered symbiotic in that regard. 

Unfortunately for a lot of trees in the forest, these figs are parasitic. Often called strangler figs, they begin life as epiphytes, spawning in the crook of a bow or branch on another tree and gradually sending root tendrils down to the forest floor.

This ominous process may take years, but by this point, the host tree is all-but doomed, and when the roots reach the substrate, the fig begins winding and squeezing around its victim. 

This evolutionary strategy necessitates the placement of the fig trees high up in the canopy, and not down in the dark understory where the seeds cannot germinate. 

So, parrots, perched in the upper branches, function to poop out fig seeds exactly where they need to be and perpetuate their own food source as a result. 

Over time, the strangler kills the host and in tropical rainforests all over the world, you can often see hollow, stand-alone trees whose previous hosts have since died and rotted away.

Sometimes you can also see the sorry remnants of the victim, wrapped in hardened root masses, silently wondering why you’re not helping them. 

Anyway, fig experts reckon these plants evolved precisely in line with the parrots, hardening their outer wall so that only a hooked and vulturine beak could penetrate them. Most other figs are soft and not remotely monkey-proof, so it’s likely this specific fruit has evolved to be eaten only by these birds. 

5. They’re hunted for their feathers

This delicate ecological relationship is unfortunately threatened by over-hunting of the birds. The vibrant, blood-red feathers are popular in traditional ceremonial decorations in Papua New Guinea, and these can really only be taken from the bird by killing it first. 

They’re also hunted for the pet trade, to be kept in cages and sometimes to be eaten as meat. One saving grace is that loggers don’t like their trees to be hollow, so the figs get mostly left alone and deforestation is not such a problem for this species. ³

6. They have strong personalities

Captive breeding is always a useful path to explore when a species is threatened, and this can be great for parrots, but anyone who’s spent time around one of these birds could tell you just how difficult they can become. 

Parrots are notoriously stubborn animals, and beaks designed for cracking nuts can make short work of fingertips, ear lobes or knuckles, too. It’s said that the Pesquet’s parrot is highly unpredictable, and this is a bird that likes what it likes. 

Breeding them is not as simple as putting a male and a female in the same place as there’s no guarantee they’ll want to be in each other’s companies, so personalities have to match.

Parrot dating science is still in its infancy, so the details of what any particular parrot will appreciate have yet to be unravelled, and physical aggression is common in captive birds. 

Mismatching can result in fatalities, which is quite the opposite of the game plan for a captive breeding program, and in one case a parrot bit off its suitor’s tongue, which led to an infection that ultimately killed the bird.

These two had been together for five months already, and everyone thought it had been going well, which shows how important vast and uncramped aviaries are to their success in captivity. 

7. Housekeeping could save them

Of course, it’s always better to solve the problem in situ where possible, and one promising solution appears to be through education.

Those ceremonial headdresses fade and deteriorate over time, increasing the demand for fresh feathers, but at least one paper suggests simply conserving the headdresses will go a long way to conserving the parrots. 

Increasing the lifespan of these feathered garments could reduce the need for new ones, and allow populations to increase again. ⁴

Pesquet’s Parrot Fact-File Summary

Scientific Classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Psittaciformes
Family:	Psittaculidae
Genus:	Psittrichas
Species:	fulgidus

1. “Pesquet’s Parrot”, World Parrot Trust.
2. Gregory S. Pryor (2001), “Protein Requirements of a Specialized Frugivore, Pesquet’s Parrot (Psittrichas fulgidus)”, Oxford Academic.
3. “Pesquet’s Parrot”, IUCN Red List.
4. Grace Nugi (2019), “More dead than alive: harvest for ceremonial headdresses threatens Pesquet’s Parrot in Papua New Guinea”, Taylor & Francis Online.