Enicognathus, G. R. Gray, 1840

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

Enicognathus

Enicognathus comprises two predominantly green species ( Enicognathus leptorhynchus and E. ferrugineus ) with dark maroon bellies, the latter presumably a recurrent plesiomorphic trait in Arini . They occur only in temperate forests and woodlands in southernmost South America and primarily along its Pacific seaboard. Interestingly, both Enicognathus , and Rhynchopsitta of Mexico, which are, respectively, among the most southerly and northerly distributed parrots in the New World, contained shallow divergences among sister species. Enicognathus leptorhynchus has an elongate maxilla that may be an adaptation to feed on the seeds of Araucaria , a conifer. We find that Enicognathus was not closely related to Pyrrhura , although it shares with many of them and indeed with Orthopsittaca manilatus (fig. 9), a distinctively dark red or maroon abdominal (belly) patch of plumage, presumably a plesiomorphic state within the Arini . Enicognathus leptorhynchus and E. ferrugineus were of recent origin and shared a common ancestor 0.6 Mya (0.2–0.9). Our data suggest no taxonomic changes to long-standing treatment of two species in both Enicognathus .