The southern mealy amazon or southern mealy parrot (Amazona farinosa) is among the largest parrots in the genus Amazona, the amazon parrots. It is a mainly green parrot with a total length of . It is native to tropical Central and South America. This species and the northern mealy amazon (Amazona guatemalae) were previously considered conspecific. Some taxonomic authorities (including the American Ornithological Society), continue to lump them together. Taxonomy The southern mealy amazon was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Psittacus farinosus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The southern mealy amazon is now placed in the large Neotropical genus Amazona that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1830. The species is monotypic. The specific epithet farinosa is from the Latin farinosus meaning "sprinkled with flour". Description The southern mealy amazon has a total length of about and weighs . Captives commonly are heavier. It is among the largest parrots in the Americas, mainly being surpassed by the large macaws. It has a relatively short and square shaped tail, as do the other members of the Amazona genus. The southern mealy amazon is mainly green. The back and nape often have a whitish tinge; almost as if it had been covered in a thin layer of flour ("meal"; hence its name). The distal half of the tail is paler and more yellow than the basal half, thus resulting in a distinctly bi-colored look. In flight it shows a bluish-black trailing edge to the wing and a conspicuous red speculum. Occasionally a few yellow feathers are apparent on the top of the head. In South America, it is commonly confused with the yellow-crowned amazon, but can be recognized by its larger size, less yellow to the crown (not entirely reliable, as some yellow-crowned may show almost none), the whitish tinge to its plumage, broader white eye-ring, and red of the leading edge of the wing placed near the phalanx (not near