Blue-and-yellow macaws mainly eat seeds, nuts, and fruits. They use their strong beaks to break open nut shells and to crush seeds. In some cases, they consume clay found at riverbanks which allows them to digest the toxins from unripe seeds that they may have ingested.
Plant Foods: seeds, grains, and nuts; fruit
Primary Diet: herbivore (Frugivore , Granivore )
Known predators include harpy eagles (Harpia harpyja), hawk eagles (Nisaetus cirrhatus) and orange-breasted falcons (Falco deiroleucus) that attack while the birds are in flight. Humans are also predators because they hunt these birds for the pet trade, food, and feathers.
Known Predators:
Blue-and-yellow macaws are from 81 to 91.5 cm long, weigh from 0.9 to 1.8 kg, and have a wing span of 104 to 114 cm. They are vibrantly colored, with blue on their backs and wings, yellow under parts, green forehead feathers, and green tips on the end of their wings. Their under-wing coverts and breast are yellow-orange and they have black beaks, throat, and legs. Their eyes are yellow and their facial area consists of bare white skin with several black feather lines around their eyes.
Range mass: 900 to 1814 g.
Range length: 81.28 to 91.44 cm.
Range wingspan: 104.14 to 114.3 cm.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; homoiothermic; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike
The life span of blue-and-yellow macaws in the wild can be up to 50 years while their breeding age ranges from 30 to 35 years. They can also live up to 50 years in captivity.
Typical lifespan
Status: wild: 30 to 35 years.
Typical lifespan
Status: captivity: 30 to 35 years.
Blue-and-yellow macaws are found mainly in rainforests in swampy and riparian areas. They nest high in trees to avoid predation.
Habitat Regions: tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: rainforest
Wetlands: swamp
Other Habitat Features: riparian
Ara ararauna (blue-and-yellow macaws) can be found throughout subtropical and tropical forests, woodlands, and savannas in South America from Venezuela to Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and Paraguay. Blue-and-yellow macaws are also found in Mexico and are restricted to Panama in Central America.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native ); neotropical (Native )
Blue-and-yellow macaws are important seed predators in tropical forests, they may influence forest dynamics through seed predation and dispersal.
Blue-and-yellow macaws are popular as pets because they are beautiful, behaviorally complex, and have the ability to mimic words and sounds. They are intelligent, social animals who are great companions and become close to their owners, if handled well.
Positive Impacts: pet trade ; body parts are source of valuable material; ecotourism
Although these birds are rewarding companions, their large size, behavioral complexity, and longevity requires a large home and extensive commitment. Their removal from native habitats also often results in deaths of parents in order to obtain fledglings and destruction of important nesting trees. The illegal pet trade results in much destruction.
Negative Impacts: household pest
Ara ararauna is considered least concern by the IUCN due to their large geographic range. The population trend is declining but not enough to reach vulnerable status. Populations are considered greater than 10,000 adult macaws and a decline of less than 10% over the past 10 years is evident. Ara ararauna is extinct in Trinidad and Tobago but conservation efforts have reintroduced these macaws on Trinidad. Between 1999 and 2004 wild caught macaws from Guyana were brought to Trinidad and placed into pre-release flight cages. Fourteen birds were released, 9 survived and produced 12 chicks within three mating seasons. Upon a second release, 12 macaws acclimated into pre-existing groups and produced 14 chicks within three mating seasons. Habitat degradation in South America from pollution, development, and logging is also affecting populations of blue and yellow macaws.
US Migratory Bird Act: no special status
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: appendix ii
State of Michigan List: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Blue-and-yellow macaws communicate by loud vocalizations or flock calls. They also have highly developed visual acuity. They have very complex social behavior and vocalizations, as do all macaws.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Blue-and-yellow macaws form monogamous pairs that mate for life.
Mating System: monogamous
Blue-and-yellow macaws reach sexual maturity at 3 to 4 years of age. Their breeding season is during the first half of the year and they breed about every 1 to 2 years. Nests are found high up in tall trees, mainly in cavities already made by other animals. Females lay 2 to 3 eggs and incubate them for 24 to 28 days, after which the young hatch blind and featherless. After 10 days the young begin to develop feathers. Within 3 months fledglings become independent.
Breeding interval: Blue-and-yellow macaws breed every 1 to 2 years.
Breeding season: Blue-and-yellow macaws breed from January through July.
Range eggs per season: 2 to 3.
Range time to hatching: 24 to 28 days.
Range time to independence: 10 (low) days.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 3 to 4 years.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 3 to 4 years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
Blue-and-yellow macaw males and females care for their young through providing for them and protecting them. During their first week after hatching, only the female will feed the young through regurgitation, afterwards the male will also feed the young. Both parents show extreme aggression towards intruders in order to protect their young.
Parental Investment: altricial ; male parental care ; female parental care ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female)
The Blue-and yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna) is a very large parrot that is ultramarine blue above and mostly golden yellow below with a long tail, a large black bill, and a bare white facial patch on each side of its head with narrow lines of black feathers. The very similar (but far rarer) Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis) has a broadly blue throat, leaving just a stripe of yellow going up each side of the neck.
Blue-and-yellow Macaws occur from eastern Panama and the tropical lowlands of South America to southeastern Brazil, Bolivia, and, at least formerly, Paraguay (they formerly occurred on Trinidad as well, but were extinct there by around 1970). They are found in wooded country, often near water. They sometimes forage in more open country, coming to the ground to feed on fallen fruits. These are gregarious, often noisy birds, usually seen in pairs, family parties, or flocks of up to 25 (or even more) individuals. They feed on a range of fruits (especially palm fruits), nuts, leafbuds, etc. Large numbers may congegate at certain riverbank locations, often with other parrot species, to ingest the mineral-rich soils exposed there. Blue-and-yellow Macaws nest high up in cavities in dead palms.
Although still common over much of their range, in other areas Blue-and-yellow Macaws have been extirpated or are currently threatened or endangered.
(Collar 1997 and references therein; Juniper and Parr 1998 and references therein)
The blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna), also known as the blue-and-gold macaw, is a large South American parrot with a mostly blue dorsum, light yellow/orange venter, and gradient hues of green on top of its head. It is a member of the large group of neotropical parrots known as macaws. It inhabits forest (especially varzea, but also in open sections of terra firme or unflooded forest), woodland and savannah of tropical South America. They are popular in aviculture because of their striking color, ability to talk, ready availability in the marketplace, and close bonding to humans.
The blue-and-yellow macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus ararauna.[2] This macaw is now one of the eight extant species placed in the genus Ara that was erected in 1799 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède.[3][4] The genus name is from ará meaning "macaw" in the Tupi language of Brazil. The word is an onomatopoeia based on the sound of their call. The specific epithet ararauna comes from the Tupi Arára úna meaning "big dark parrot" for the hyacinth macaw.[5] The word ararauna had been used by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in 1648 in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.[6] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.[4]
These birds can reach a length of 76–86 cm (30–34 in) and weigh 0.900–1.5 kg (2–3 lb), making them some of the larger members of their family. They are vivid in appearance with bright aqua blue feathers on the top of their body except for the head, which is lime colored. The bottom, however, is a rich deep yellow/light orange. Their beak is black, as well as the feathers under their chin. Its feet are of a gray color, save for black talons. The bird has white skin, with its face having nearly no feathers beside a few black ones spaced apart from each other forming a striped pattern around the eyes. The irises are pale light yellow.
Blue-and-yellow macaws can live from 30 to 35 years in the wild, and reach sexual maturity between the ages of 3 and 6 years.[7]
Little variation in plumage is seen across the range. Some birds have a more orange or "butterscotch" underside color, particularly on the breast. This was often seen in Trinidad birds and others of the Caribbean area. The blue-and-yellow macaw uses its powerful beak for breaking nutshells, and for climbing up and hanging from trees.[7] As well as nuts, it will also feed on seeds, fruits, vegetable matter, bark and leaves, also insects, snails and small animals.[8][9]
This species occurs in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. The range extends slightly into Central America, where it is restricted to Panama. While most breed in rural and forested areas, small numbers breed in urban cities such as Rondonópolis (Mato Grosso, Brazil), nesting in dead palms planted for ornamental purposes alongside city roads.[10] Although they were nearly wiped out in Trinidad due to human activity during the 1970s, a recent programme of reintroduction has proved successful. Between 1999 and 2003, wild-caught blue-and-yellow macaws were translocated from Guyana to Trinidad, in an attempt to re-establish the species in a protected area around Nariva Swamp;[11] despite this, the IUCN still lists them as extirpated from the country. A small breeding population descended from introduced birds is found in Puerto Rico,[1] and another has inhabited Miami-Dade County, Florida, since the mid-1980s.[12]
The blue-and-yellow macaw generally mates for life. They nest almost exclusively in dead palms and most nests are in Mauritia flexuosa palms. The female typically lays two or three eggs. The female incubates the eggs for about 28 days. One chick is dominant and gets most of the food; the others perish in the nest. Chicks fledge from the nest about 97 days after hatching. The male bird's color signals readiness for breeding. The brighter and bolder the colors, the better the chance of getting a mate.[13]
The blue-and-yellow macaw is on the verge of being extirpated in Paraguay, but it still remains widespread and fairly common in a large part of mainland South America. The species is therefore listed as Least Concern by BirdLife International. It is listed on CITES Appendix II, trade restricted.[1] Its current wild population is estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 individuals.
Even well-tended blue-and-yellow macaws are known to "scream" for attention, and make other loud noises. Loud vocalizations, especially "flock calls", and destructive chewing are natural parts of their behavior and should be expected in captivity. Due to their large size, they also require plentiful space in which to fly around. According to World Parrot Trust, an enclosure for a blue-and-yellow macaw should, if possible, be at least 15 m (50 ft) in length.[14] Captive macaws, kept with good diet, exercise, and veterinary care are known to have lived 60 or more years.[15] People considering a macaw as a companion parrot must be aware of this and consider that the bird may outlive the owner.
The blue-and-yellow macaw has been noted to blush its bare facial skin and fluff the feathers of its cheeks, head and nape when interacting with humans. This may be an expression of the parrot's emotional state.[16]
Head in high detail, Vogelburg (bird park), Weilrod, Germany
Sleepy couple at Weltvogelpark Walsrode (Walsrode Bird Park, Germany)
Blue and yellow macaw skeleton (Museum of Osteology)
At Walsrode Bird Park, Germany
Video clip
The blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna), also known as the blue-and-gold macaw, is a large South American parrot with a mostly blue dorsum, light yellow/orange venter, and gradient hues of green on top of its head. It is a member of the large group of neotropical parrots known as macaws. It inhabits forest (especially varzea, but also in open sections of terra firme or unflooded forest), woodland and savannah of tropical South America. They are popular in aviculture because of their striking color, ability to talk, ready availability in the marketplace, and close bonding to humans.