TAXONOMIC STATUS OF PS1TTACULA INTERMEDIA 



35 



Mr L. Critchley of yet another adult male hybrid and its parents. This 

 bird was one of five hybrids in a single brood that Critchley 

 incidentally produced by housing a male cyanocephala in a mixed 

 aviary with a female himalayana, but he sold the other four hybrids 

 to a pet shop in the U.K. before they attained adult plumage. Photos 

 of all captive birds discussed in this paper are on file both with 

 BirdLife International HQ and the senior author, and selected photos 

 showing each specimen will appear on a colour plate accompanying 

 a short article on Psittacula intermedia (Rasmussen and Collar in 

 press). 



RESULTS 



Sane's Captives 



BNHS 26758 and Sane's other two birds, one stuffed and one alive 

 as of December 1997, are all captive, dataless males identified as 

 intermedia. However, all proved to be considerably different from 

 the Rothschild specimens, possessing characters of both cyano- 

 cephala and krameri, but none inconsistent with their being hybrids 

 between the latter two species (Tables 1 and 2; Appendix). Sane's 

 birds have much bluer, paler sides to the head and a greener mid- and 

 hindcrown than do any of the Rothschild Collection intermedia; like 

 the latter they have mainly lilac cheeks, but many feathers of the 

 head are multicoloured, at least on the two skin specimens. On the 

 sides of the crown and edge of the black moustache, most of the 

 individual feathers have peach-coloured bases and blue tips; on the 

 cheek the bases tend to be peach and the tips lilac; while the feathers 

 of the centre of crown and nape have green centres and blue tips. The 

 specimens have entirely black lower mandibles and all-red upper 

 mandibles except for the paler tips. Their soft-part colours and the 



Table 3 Component loadings for PCAs of (A) bill width, wing, and tail 

 measures for a model including juvenile Psittacula himalayana; (B) bill, 

 wing length, and rectrix 5 measures, including Sane's mounted 

 specimen and three of Sedgemore 's living birds; and (C) head and wing 

 measures, including BNHS 26758 (Sane's study skin). 



Factor 



B 



Measurement 



1 



2 



Head 







Culmen length 



- 



- 



Maxilla height 



- 



- 



Bill width 



0.67 



0.06 



Skull width 



- 



- 



Wing 







Wing length 



0.95 



0.11 



P3 shortfall 



- 



- 



P4 shortfall 



- 



- 



P5 shortfall 



- 



- 



P6 shortfall 



0.93 



0.16 



P7 shortfall 



0.93 



0.24 



P8 shortfall 



0.97 



0.14 



P9 shortfall 



0.96 



0.19 



P10 shortfall 



0.96 



0.19 



PI notch length 



- 



- 



PI maximum width 



0.68 



-0.43 



PI notch width 



- 



- 



P2 width 



0.62 



-0.59 



P3 width 



- 



- 



P4 width 



- 



- 



P5 width 



- 



- 



Tail 







Rl width 



0.83 



0.02 



R2 width 



0.75 



-0.50 



0.93 0.03 0.82 



0.96 0.06 0.87 



0.95 0.05 0.85 



0.84 



-0.49 0.06 



-0.36 0.10 



-0.38 -0.20 



-0.24 -0.02 



0.93 -0.12 



0.56 



0.92 

 -0.09 

 0.67 

 0.86 

 0.92 

 0.95 

 0.95 

 0.96 

 0.95 

 0.68 



0.36 

 0.58 

 0.66 

 0.81 

 0.86 



0.76 - 



-0.20 

 0.81 

 0.57 

 0.41 

 0.29 

 0.16 

 0.21 

 0.13 

 0.11 



-0.55 



0.12 

 0.06 

 0.24 

 0.09 

 0.10 

 0.13 

 0.11 

 0.12 

 0.16 

 0.12 



-0.57 -0.45 



0.56 -0.42 



0.31 -0.49 



0.11 -0.34 



-0.16 -0.27 



feathering at the bill base are all unlike AMNH intermedia. The 

 maxillae of Sane's birds are smoothly rounded on lateral view and 

 not particularly robust proximally, being very similar in shape to 

 krameri, not himalayana. Two of the three individuals bear no 

 indication of the red shoulder patches (and they are very vague in the 

 third) that are shown by both male cyanocephala and himalayana, 

 and that are present in five of Rothschild's six adult intermedia, but 

 that are always lacking in male krameri. However, of all the features 

 in which Sane's three birds differ from AMNH intermedia, none is 

 more telling than the broken orange-chestnut neck ring of the former 

 (Table 2), which (assuming that the birds are hybrids) can hardly 

 have come from any source other than krameri or the much larger 

 Alexandrine Parakeet P. eupatria. Also, in both of the individuals 

 with the central rectrices present, the feathers have very small pale 

 tips, consistent only with the latter two species. 



In 1990, one of two 'intermedia' then alive in Sane's possession 

 was photographed in Bombay by R. Wirth. The published photo 

 (Wirth 1990) shows a bird very similar to BNHS 26758 and Sane's 

 uncatalogued specimen, and from the date it may be either the bird 

 still living as of 1 997 or the uncatalogued specimen; it possesses the 

 same suite of features consistent with its being a hybrid krameri x 

 cyanocephala (or possibly krameri x roseata). A description of the 

 second live bird was not provided, but Sane considered both to be 

 intermedia, and Wirth (in litt. 1997) noticed no differences between 



■% 2 



> 





o 



-1 



-2 



_ Sane 



R / vjuy^ 621545 



/ I H 



-10 1 2 3 



Factor 1 70.8%, 6.4; size (R4 uncorrected) 



Fig. 1 Identity of AMNH 621545 with immature Psittacula himalayana: 

 graphs of individual scores (circles), group means (triangles), and 95% 

 confidence intervals (open ovals) of factor scores from principal 

 components analysis (PCA) on measurements of adult male P. 

 cyanocephala (C, grey-filled circles), P. himalayana (H, white), AMNH 

 P. intermedia (black), immature P. himalayana of both sexes (diagonal 

 hatching); P. roseata (R, diagonal cross-hatching), both populations of P. 

 finschii (F, horizontal cross-hatching), one of Sane's specimens 

 (checkered), and P. krameri (K, horizontal bars). A polygon outlines the 

 scores for AMNH P. intermedia specimens due to small sample size. 

 Summary statistics presented in the axis labels are percent variance 

 explained and eigenvalues, respectively, followed by important measures 

 for each axis. Component loadings for PCA are given in Table 3A. 



