Cyanoliseus, Bonaparte, 1854

Smith, Brian Tilston, Thom, Gregory & Joseph, Leo, 2024, Revised Evolutionary And Taxonomic Synthesis For Parrots (Order: Psittaciformes) Guided By Phylogenomic Analysis, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2024 (468), pp. 1-87 : 41

Cyanoliseus

Cyanoliseus comprises one polytypic species,

C. patagonus , of southern South America. Its placement in a monotypic genus is absolutely warranted by its phenotypic uniqueness stemming from unusually brownish-olive plumage, orange belly plumage fringed yellow and its large-bodied, long-tailed morphology. Further, it obligatorily rather than opportunistically nests in holes in cliffs, one of just a few parrots to do so. The biology of the species has been extensively studied (e.g., Masello and Quillfeldt, 2004a, 2004b; Masello et al., 2006) and intraspecific genetic diversity has been addressed by Masello et al. (2011, 2015). It continues to challenge accurate phylogenetic placement. We found it to be one of several long branches diverging from very short internodes in the Arini suggesting it as possibly sister to the assemblage of macaws and their allies (e.g., Aratinga and their conurelike allies; fig. 9).