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  In flight

Parrots

Orange-bellied Parrot

Neophema chrysogaster

• mythic
• 45 km/h
• Critically Endangered

Down to 14 wild birds in 2017, now slowly recovering. One of the world's rarest parrots, clinging to survival.

Population

~91 wild individuals (Nov 2025 census; ABC News, cited via Wikipedia), recovered from a low of 14 in Feb 2017; captive "insurance population" of ~300 birds across Taroona, Healesville Sanctuary, Adelaide Zoo, Moonlit Sanctuary and Priam Parrot Breeding Centre (figure tied to a ~2016-17 target period — current captive headcount not independently reconfirmed). Note: IUCN's own last formal reassessment (15 Aug 2018) still lists only 20-25 mature individuals / an "extremely rapid recent decline" — that number is now stale relative to the 2025 wild recovery, but the CR category itself remains correct (population is still tiny and the species remains one-site-dependent).

Habitat

Breeds in eucalypt forest/woodland fringing button grass moorland in southwest Tasmania (sole extant breeding site: Melaleuca), nesting in tree hollows within about 30 km of the coast; winters in coastal saltmarsh, estuaries, dunes and lagoons within a few km of shore on the mainland

Fun fact

It is one of only three migratory parrot species in the world, crossing Bass Strait twice a year between its Tasmanian breeding grounds and mainland Australian wintering sites — one banded bird ("blue/black F") lived past age 9 and is thought to have made roughly 20 such crossings, though mean actual wild lifespan is only ~1.76 years given extremely high first-migration mortality.

Range

Endemic to Australia: breeds only in southwest Tasmania (Melaleuca), migrates across Bass Strait to winter along the coast of Victoria and South Australia (historically as far as the Yorke Peninsula, SA, to southern New South Wales), with vagrants further afield

Diet

Seeds and berries of coastal/saltmarsh plants, especially beaded glasswort (Salicornia quinqueflora) and shrubby glasswort (Tecticornia arbuscula), also coast fescue, saltbush, Austral seablite, sea heath and Coprosma berries; occasionally kelp

Size

0.235 m

Wingspan

0.31 m

Lifespan

12 years