Alexandrine parakeet
species of bird
The Alexandrine parakeet (Psittacula eupatria), also known as the Alexandrine parrot, is a medium-sized parrot in the genus Psittacula of the family Psittaculidae, native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is 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.
The Alexandrine parakeet has established feral populations in Turkey,
Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Pakistan, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium where it lives alongside feral populations of its close relative, the rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri).
Taxonomy and etymology
The Alexandrine parakeet was first described by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson as Psittaca Ginginiana or "La Perruche de Gingi" (The Gingi's Parakeet) in 1760; after the town of Gingee in southeastern India, which was a French outpost then. The birds may, however, merely have been held in captivity there. Carl Linnaeus redescribed the Alexandrine parakeet in 1766 as Psittacus eupatria.
The genus name Psittacula is a diminutive of the Latin word psittacus meaning "parrot", and the specific name eupatria (εὖπατριά) is derived from the ancient Greek eu- meaning "well" and patriá meaning "descent".
In 2019, a genetic study revived the genus Palaeornis, formerly viewed as a synonym of the current genus Psittacula. Some organisations – including the IUCN – have accepted the new taxonomy. If this were to be taken into account, this could mean that the Alexandrine parakeet is the only living member of the now-revived genus.
“Alexandrine parakeet” enters the record as species of bird. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alexandrine, parakeet and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q753746. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1760, 1766 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alexandrine parakeet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.