Abstract
What makes parrots so attractive to both professional breeders, birdwatchers and zoo visitors is
a combination of many factors, including their bright colors, their conspicuousness, their powerful voice coupled with complex behaviour that allows them to be spotted easily in the field and, most important of all, their ability to interact with humans and even "learn" new kinds of behaviours from them.
Today, many species of parrots, including macaws, cockatoos, parakeets, lories, amazons and more are showcased and often bred in zoological institutions all around the world, even in third world countries. As many zoo directors would state, a modern zoological collection wouldn't be complete without a few big parrots species which will always be popular for most visitors.
Southeast Asia has been and still remains a dream destination for any bird enthusiast because of the huge variety of unusual and colorful species to be found there and the big areas of unexplored forests, both inland and insular, that could provide the discoverer with many new bird varieties like it did recently in Papua New Guinea.
The diversity and distribution of parrots in this region follows a pattern described by Alfred Russel Wallace in the 19th Century with the clear separation from the Asian and the Australian zoogeographical zones by the transitional area known today as Wallacea, which has the Wallace's line as western boundary and the Lydekker's line as eastern limit.
The Australian zoogeographical zone encompasses all Australia and its satellite islands, along with a few archipelagos like Solomon Islands, Micronesia, but also includes New Guinea. Here the tropical rainforests are mostly monsoon forests and the general climate is drier during most parts of the year. The Asian zoogeographical zone is here represented by mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines and the four main Islands of western Indonesia, namely Borneo, Sumatra, Java and Bali, along with their satellite islands. Here, the forests are mostly to be qualified as tropical wet rainforests with a much more humid climate throughout the year and less important seasonal variations.
Finally, Wallacea is really a transitional zone which has characteristics of both Asian and Australian zoo geographical areas. It features both humid rainforests and dry monsoon forests and, according to the location, can show stronger or less marked seasonal climatic variations. The area extends from Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara archipelago in Indonesia to the Moluccas.
Fauna distribution is clearly following this separation pattern and is particularly striking for birds, even on a family basis. Some bird families such as Paradiseidae are present in the Australian region and only one species extends to the far-east side of Wallacea. On the opposite side, leafbirds and fairy blue birds are typical Asian species and are not represented in both Wallacea and Australian zoogeographical zones.