A colourful Australian parrot with a blue head, green wings and an orange-to-yellow breast.
The bill is bright red, and males and females look alike. The back and tail are green.
In Tasmania, an introduced population of Rainbow Lorikeets is managed as an invasive bird. Hill and colleagues compared carbon and nitrogen isotope patterns in feathers from captive birds and wild populations in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. A feather’s pattern reflects the bird’s diet while it grows.
Of 47 Tasmanian birds, two had higher carbon values than the rest and fell within the cluster of captive birds. Food such as nectar supplements given to captive birds may have contributed to the high values, and the authors judged these two birds likely recent escapees. The comparison also included 18 captive birds, 33 wild birds from South Australia and 40 from Western Australia. Feather analysis helped identify outliers in the newly established Tasmanian population. In the larger Western Australian population, wild and captive isotope patterns overlapped more, making recent escapees harder to identify. The study shows that feather evidence can help trace a lorikeet’s diet and possible recent origin, with usefulness varying among populations.
IUCN Red List (BirdLife International) · Least Concern (LC) · Global
The 2024 global IUCN Red List assessment classifies the Rainbow Lorikeet as Least Concern (LC).