Alexandrine parakeet

English

Male Alexandrine parakeet

Etymology

Named after Alexander the Great, who transported numerous birds from Punjab to various European and Mediterranean countries and regions, where they were prized by the royalty, nobility and warlords.

Noun

Alexandrine parakeet (plural Alexandrine parakeets)

1. A medium-sized parrot, Psittacula eupatria, native to South Asia and Southeast Asia.

   Synonym: Alexandrine

   • 2004, The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide, San Francisco, Calif.: Fog City Press, →ISBN, page 298:

     Alexandrine parakeets are among those parrot species that also come in a mutant blue color variety due to the suppression of yellow pigmentation.

   • 2013, Rohini Singh, Free Fall: The Journey Home, Hay House, →ISBN:

     She’s a parrot, children, a special kind – an Alexandrine parakeet. Notice her head, it’s bigger than most other parrots, and when she gets feathers she’ll have these pretty red shoulder patches ....

   • 2021, Marcy Norton, “Going to the birds: animals as things and beings in early modernity”, in Paula Findlen, editor, Early Modern Things: Objects and their Histories, 1500–1800 (Early Modern Themes), 2nd edition, Routledge, →ISBN, part I (The ambiguity of things), page 60:

     In the thirteenth century, Frederick II acquired an umbrella cockatoo from the Sultan of Babylon, and in the fourteenth century, Charles IV of France had an Alexandrine parakeet in his aviary.

Further reading

• Alexandrine parakeet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia