The Zoochat Photographic Guide to Parrots

Another new species for the thread: the Sula Lorikeet Saudareos flavoviridis by @Sicarius which completes that genus.

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Sula lorikeet (Saudareos flavoviridis) - ZooChat
 
Chlidonias said:
Are you saying here that past holders (e.g. on ZTL) are also not nominate? There are a couple of photos on Zoochat from 2010 from Heppenheim.
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I cannot say for sure, but I think the species has not been around for a very long time. I don't think we can assume the origin of the Heppenheim birds without proper research.
 
Chlidonias said:
Photo by @HOMIN96 at Prague Zoo Praha (Czech Republic) - juvenile bird of the subspecies desmarestii (adult birds have bright orange on the top of the head). A comment on the photo suggests this to be a female of occidentalis but the only subspecies in which the sexes are coloured differently to one another is godmani. Only the subspecies desmarestii and intermedia have green cheeks and ear-coverts - in the other subspecies these are bright yellow. Note that the photos used on Zootierliste for the different subspecies are just a random mixture of subspecies.
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Years later and this bird looks still the same. It's odd that it never developed the orange on top of the head. The green cheeks are also very intense green, rather than yellowish green. I wonder if it is a pure animal. I even had a friend who said it looks like a salvadorii x desmarestii hybrid.
I find some birds that are called occidentalis (like this one: Suraloka Interactive Zoo - Yellow-faced fig parrot (Psittaculirostris desmarestii occidentalis) - ZooChat) to have their colours more pronounced. The yellow is more clear, even the part above the eye is similar in colour and only the front of the head is really orange. The blue line underneath the eye is also much bigger than the European birds. I wonder if the population in European aviculture might be hybrids or belongs to subspecies intermedia.
In the original description, the blue subocular spot is said to be much smaller in occidentalis than it is for the nominate subspecies, but the pictures of those very yellow occidentalis in Asian zoos contradict that.
A difficult matter that has kept me busy for far too long today!
 
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