Talk:Amazon parrot

Untitled

Is it a good idea to have separate articles for (for example) Blue fronted Amazon? At the moment there is at most a paragraph of content for each of the parrots listed, and none for most.

Perhaps it would be better to place the content for these pages into sections on the Amazon parrot page. If any parrot later gets enough information specific to that species, it can be given an individual article at that time.

Ben@liddicott.com 15:22, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Uppercase Amazon?

Shouldn't "amazon" be "Amazon" in the common names in this article (and in related articles)? My understanding is that the "amazon" refers to the geographic region known as "the Amazon" (the location of the Amazon rainforest and Amazon river). I believe Wikipedia generally uses uppercase in words of a common species name that are the proper name of a specific place. See MOS:LIFE, which says words in common names are "capitalized where they contain proper names: Przewalski's horse, California condor, and fair-maid-of-France", and WP:FAUNA example "New World monkey". —BarrelProof (talk) 20:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

This was previously discussed at WP:BIRDS, but there was no real consensus either way - see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Birds/Archive 66#Amazon_parrots. FWIW, I agree with you. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. To me, that prior discussion appears to reach a rough conclusion and exhibit a preponderance of views that capitalization is appropriate. The only person I see there saying that the MOS would indicate lowercase also seems to be calling the general notion of lowercasing a "fiasco". A later remark pointed out that all examples in the Oxford dictionary (which include three parrot examples) use uppercase, and the last remark that was recorded said "Amazon" should be presumed to refer to the general region of Amazonia and should be uppercased, as when referring to other named geographic places. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't clear to me if it should be upper or lower case. The discussion at WP:BIRDS seemed inconclusive and I saw that someone had already changed most of the Amazons to lower case, so I followed their lead. If we determine that is wrong, I'd be happy to work on reversing all the changes made. There were many changes though, so I'd like to see a firm decision made rather than to just dive in.

As part of the discussion, in the past all bird names were upper case, so it wasn't clear if amazon was being used as a proper name or not. It's not clearly referring to the Amazon river when referring to the Cuban, Puerto Rican, Yucatan, et cetera amazon, it's a kind of bird. When we refer to the Attila (genus), it's lower case even though they are named after Attila the Hun. I also understand that inca, in cases like Gould's inca is not upper case.

I don't have a strong feeling either way, but want to be clear that it wasn't a decision made without thought. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 04:05, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like anyone feels too strongly about this, which I suppose is a good thing! If we're going to go with "white-fronted amazon", not "white-fronted amazon parrot", and use sentence case, the intuitive choice is to use a lowercase a, analogous to "inca" and "attila". It seems that most of the time (at least when talking about the wild birds), authors use "amazon" as a standalone noun, despite the complications below, and there aren't many cases of "yellow-billed Amazon" and the like to be found. But I don't care strongly wither, and you're quite welcome to convince me. —innotata 18:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

To complicate matters further, there is another aspect that may be worth thinking about. There seems to be a difference between the grammatical construction of the phrase "an Amazon parrot" and the phrase "a yellow-billed Amazon" or simply "an Amazon" (when referring to a parrot). In "an Amazon parrot", the word "Amazon" is an adjective, not a noun. If "Amazon" was a noun in that phrase, it would be like saying "a horse mammal" which is ungrammatical because a horse and a mammal are both nouns and we don't string multiple nouns together like that. I see two possibilities for interpretation of the phrase "a yellow-billed Amazon". One is that there is an implied noun ("parrot") that has been omitted for the sake of brevity, so "Amazon" is still basically acting like an adjective. This seems sort of like the term Russian Black Pied, which is the name of a cattle breed, because pied is really an adjective (sort of synonymous with "spotted"), and there is an implied noun (which is "cattle" in that case). It would seem ungrammatical to say "I saw a spotted walking along the path yesterday"; one instead should say "I saw a spotted cow walking along the path yesterday" because otherwise the noun is missing in the sentence. The other interpretation is to say that "Amazon" is actually a noun in the phrase "a yellow-billed Amazon", so "an Amazon" is a type of parrot – a noun phrase rather than an adjective that prefixes the noun "parrot". As an adjective, I think the case seems stronger for the capitalization, because it seems to be referring to the proper name of a geographic place (e.g., as in Hainan peacock-pheasant, which is a bird found in Hainan). But overall, I must say that I find the lowercase "amazon" rather disconcerting, and note that dictionaries generally at least don't seem to actively discourage its capitalization. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Another example of the "missing noun problem" is Rhode Island Red, where the implied noun is "chicken". One can use "Rhode Island Red" as a noun phrase, but "Red" is ordinarily considered an adjective. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:16, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

an amazon parrot refers to the genus Amazona. There are many amazon parrots away that are away from the Amazon region. The genus should be capitalized, but the common name should not, following Wikipedia capitalization rules. Other scientific names are used as part of the common name. The scientific name piece is capitalized where appropriate, the common name is downcased where appropriate (Donacobius, Nicator, Rhea, Cotinga come to mind) Given that, whatever the entire group decides, I'm OK with.........Pvmoutside (talk) 17:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

There are certainly Amazon parrots that are away from the Amazon region, but I believe they (and their genus) got their name from that region (e.g., they are commonly called "Amazon parrots", not "Amazona parrots"). One of the quirks of common names is that they are not required to follow strict logic, but I believe the name is derived from the geographic place, and the proper names of geographic places are typically capitalized in a common name. I guess at this point I suggest capitalization when 'Amazon' is used as an adjective and not when it is used as a noun (as a type of parrot). —BarrelProof (talk) 03:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the Amazon River was named after the Amazons of Greek mythology, and I can't find any other significant meaning for amazon in any language, so it looks like Amazon is based on a proper name. What I'm less clear on is whether it should be capitalized in a bird name. Right now Wikipedia has the inca hummingbirds lower case, but the Inca dove upper case. For the Attila (genus), I looked in Google Books and Scholar and found that where lower case names were used, attila was lower case. I can't find clear evidence either way for inca or amazon. I prefer lower case simply because it would be more work to change back to upper case in all the articles and lists, but if the consensus goes the other way, I'll start on the changes. Should we call for an administrator to close this? (By the way, I think it's great to find a discussion on Wikipedia where no one has strong feelings and everyone is willing to compromise!) SchreiberBike talk 21:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I would capitalize this, too. The legendary Amazons: proper name. The river, rain forest and region, named after the classical figures: proper names. Dictionaries are notably capitalization-averse, so if they capitalize this, including with reference to the parrots, I think we're safe doing so, too. There are proper names that become "commonized" over time (lynched, draconian, even platonic in the sense of relationships not philosophy), but this isn't all that frequent. If sources that are actually reliable on how to capitalize a word in everyday English writing are capitalizing this, then we should, too. I'm sympathetic to the argument that in this case because it's derived from a genus name, Amazona, that is capitalized by convention not as a proper name, and we don't capitalize English words derived from taxa (it's Felidae but felid, Felinae, but feline), that we shouldn't capitalize it here, but I think the underlying proper name trumps that, because Amazona itself is named after the Amazon (in the geographic sense). If the name just accidentally coincided with a proper name, different story (e.g. genus Erica, from Latin erica 'heath, broom', not from Nordic personal name Erica/Erika, fem. of Eric/Erik). BarrelProof's noun/adjective analysis isn't necessary; proper names are capitalized in English (not many other languages) even when used as adjectives.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:42, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Useful to still include alternate names?

I see with this edit, User:Ddum5347 removed the alternative names for several species, when reorganizing the taxonomy. Is there any particular reason why the article shouldn't include these, just to help people find what they're looking for? Names such as 'blue-fronted amazon' and 'double yellow-headed amazon' are very commonly used (a quick google search will confirm this). --Iloveparrots (talk) 16:49, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I removed them for the sake of consistency. All the amazons have different names, and I simply listed them with the title of their article and binomial. Ddum5347 (talk) 16:55, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Just realized something else. Did you just put them in alphabetical order by Latin name? I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. I'm not sure if what was there before was correct, but I think they were supposed to be in taxonomic sequence there. --Iloveparrots (talk) 17:02, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

There's no dates or sources to give such a sequence. So they're alphabetised for now. Ddum5347 (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I *think* this here contains the currently accepted taxonomic order. I'd need confirmation on that from someone whose area this is before I added it to the article though... --Iloveparrots (talk) 17:11, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I asked about it at WP:BIRDS - here. Bit confused about this myself now... --Iloveparrots (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, we'll see who can help us with this. Taxonomic sequence for such a large genus is hard to make. Ddum5347 (talk) 17:38, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Team-B-Vital Improvement Drive

Hello all!

This article has been chosen as this week's effort for WP:Discord's #team-b-vital channel, a collaborate effort to bring Stub and Start class Vital articles up to a B class if possible, similar to WP:Articles for Improvement. This effort will run for up to seven days, ending early if the article is felt to be at B-class or impossible to further improve. Articles are chosen by a quick vote among interested chatters, with the goal of working together on interesting Vital articles that need improving. This is the first article chosen and a trial run for the effort.

Thank you! -- ferret (talk) 23:31, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Why did the species list get removed from this article? I thought that would be a useful thing to have in there. List of amazon parrots is outdated and in the wrong taxonomic order. --Iloveparrots (talk) 09:05, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I believe they're following what appears to be guidance from WP:Birds and the GA Phedina as a model. As there's a dedicated list article that has split the details out already, having it in both places is duplicative. If the list is outdated, it should certainly be updated and fixed. Leaving the list broken because there was a second list here is no good. -- ferret (talk) 13:06, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

We're looking at getting the list up-to-date. -- ferret (talk) 13:17, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I did try to fix it myself a while back but I couldn't get the hang of the table syntax. The version that was removed from this article is correct and up-to-date, as far as I'm aware. --Iloveparrots (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Iloveparrots: I have finished adding the missing entries to List of amazon parrots and fixing a few issues such as Scaly-naped name and noting farinosa as the southern mealy. -- ferret (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Just one thing though - if you look at the IOC taxonomy, the species are presented in a specific order for a reason. That's what I was trying to fix the other week and I kept messing up the table syntax... --Iloveparrots (talk) 13:56, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

@Iloveparrots: Could you clarify what that reason is, and what the specific order is? As far as I can tell it's simply a spreadsheet, no statement or description of an order with any given purpose is described. -- ferret (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Sure thing. It's the taxonomic sequence. The listed order is supposed to indicate the evolutionary relationships between the various amazon species. It was previously discussed here at WP:BIRDS. --Iloveparrots (talk) 14:38, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I believe this effort has been a stunning successful and that the article has reached a B class state. Interested editors may continue to work on it if they plan to push for GA. -- ferret (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Amazon parrot/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: AryKun (talk · contribs) 07:23, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll look into reviewing this article. AryKun (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2021 (UTC) I've done some minor edits already, and my issues with the article are given below. You don't have to implement them all if you think that some aren't going to improve the article, but I'd like a response to each one. AryKun (talk) 15:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• There are some dublinks: "yellow-crowned amazon", "yellow-named amazon"

• Removed aside from the link on one of the images. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• The article currently alternates between common names and scientific names, which is both inconsistent and not reader-friendly. I would prefer that all the names in the article body be changed to the common names, as it's easier for the reader to grasp which species we're talking about.

• Removed, again aside from the images. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• There also seems to be inconsistency in the capitalization of Amazon when referring to the parrots. I would personally like it to be uncapitalized, but I don't really have a strong opinion on this, so you can standardize it either way.

• Changed to lowercase. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• The lede, description, and distribution sections are very short; all of them need to be expanded, especially the description.

• Will do this later. I can easily see expansion of the lead and distribution/habitat, but for description, I don't think much can be done - it is a genus, after all, and this is pretty much all I've found on the characteristics of the genus itself rather than specific types of amazon parrots. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Actually, looking at the lead, I'm not sure it raelly needs much expansion. It touches on most of the main points concisely and would be pretty good for explaining to someone what an amazon parrot is. Roniius^{talk to me} 14:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• The distribution and habitat section contains no information about habitat, and the content about feral populations of amazons is disjunct and a bit confusing, so it can probably be improved.

• Perhaps changing to just distribution if nothing on habitat can be found? Again, will do this later. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Expanded. Roniius^{talk to me} 11:08, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• " Captive birds are more likely to be less fertile." is confusing to read: "more likely" should be replaced with likelier.

• Done. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Feeding contains no information on foraging tactics. The information about foods that they feed on in the wild and in captivity is also mixed and should be separate.

• Feeding in captivity moved to aviculture section. As for the foraging part, will also do that later. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Couldn't actually find anything on foraging other than the times the parrots forage, as most of the searches I did only gave results related to the need to forage and how it is taken away in captivity. Added this to the aviculture section. Roniius^{talk to me} 11:24, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• Conservation status should probably incorporate info about the main threats to the species in the genus, along with any prominent conservation efforts that are being undertaken for an individual species.

• Main threats are already there - "habitat loss, persecution, the pet trade and the introduction of other species". As for conservation of individual species, I didn't actually think that was going to be necessary in an article about the genus, but I have found some resources on the conservation of parrots such as the Puerto Rican parrot. Will add this.

• Added paragraph on the Puerto Rican parrot, probably the most notable of all conservation efforts for amazon parrots (and the only one I could find that I could add something about in detail). Roniius^{talk to me} 11:33, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• In the first sentence in aviculture, is the italicizing for adaptability and joyfulness necessary?

• I did this originally because I thought them more subjective. Removed italics. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• "However, some amazons can become aggressive through hormones and attack their owners, which has led to behavior modification of the parrots" is unclear, and doesn't really communicate the point it's trying to make.

• Changed to "However, some amazons can have hormonally-induced aggressiveness and attack their owners, which has led to owners seeking behavior modification for their parrots." Roniius^{talk to me} 10:47, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

• @AryKun: Think I've adequately addressed most of your comments. Roniius^{talk to me} 10:24, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I've done a final copyedit, and since everything about the article complies with the GA criteria, I'll be passing it. AryKun (talk) 11:38, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Some dubious info in this article about sunflower seeds

Currently says:

> Within captivity, it is recommended to feed parrots sunflower seeds and parrot mix, changed daily.

It's really not a good idea to feed your Amazon lots of sunflower seed:

e.g.

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/amazon-parrots-feeding

> Although wild Amazon parrots have access to seeds all year round, the types of seeds they have feed on change throughout the year, as different plants come into season. The commercial seed mixes offered to many captive parrots tend to be high in fat and deficient in nutrients. If these mixes are fed as the only source of food, Amazon parrots could become ill and ultimately die prematurely. To make matters worse, often, birds will pick through a large bowl of commercial seed mix and selectively eat 1 or 2 favorite types of seeds, limiting their nutrient intake even further. They often preferentially choose peanuts and sunflower seeds that are particularly high in fat and deficient in calcium, vitamin A, and other nutrients. Their selective appetite can further predispose them to malnutrition.

> Seeds should only be a small part of a balanced diet and should never be the entire diet. In addition, only a couple of nuts should be offered daily.

Parrot pellets along with fresh fruit and vegetables seems to be the current thinking.

Haven't got time to fix this right now, but I thought I'd mention it here. Wouldn't want anyone reading this to get bad info. --Iloveparrots (talk) 14:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

@Iloveparrots: Thanks a lot for the source. Changed. Roniius^{talk to me} 14:25, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Awesome. Thank you very much. --Iloveparrots (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)