The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) is a large yellow, red and blue Central and South American parrot, a member of a large group of Neotropical parrots called macaws. It is native to humid evergreen forests of the Neotropics. Its range extends from south-eastern Mexico to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Brazil in lowlands of (at least formerly) up to , the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as well as the Pacific island of Coiba. Formerly, it ranged north to southern Tamaulipas. In some areas, it has suffered local extinction because of habitat destruction, or capture for the parrot trade, but in other areas, it remains fairly common. It is the national bird of Honduras. Like its relative the blue-and-yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw is a popular bird in aviculture as a result of its striking plumage. Taxonomy The scarlet macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Psittacus macao. The scarlet macaw is now placed in the genus Ara (Lacépède, 1799), one of 6 genera of Central and South American macaws. The two subspecies can be recognized by size and color detail in the feathers on the wings: A. m. macao (Linnaeus, 1758): South American scarlet macaw, the nominate subspecies. In the wings the medium and secondary coverts have green tip. A. m. cyanopterus Wiedenfeld, 1995: North Central American scarlet macaw. The Central American scarlet macaw is larger and has blue on its wings instead of green. Genetics In May 2013, it was announced that a team of scientists, led by Dr. Christopher M. Seabury and Dr. Ian Tizard of Texas A&M University had sequenced the complete genome of the scarlet macaw. Based on this genome, species-specific microsatellite genetic markers were developed to aid genetic studies throughout the range of the species. These genetic markers were later validated on the trace amount of DNA acquired from feathers, and applied to study red-and-green macaws in a tropical landscape where DNA can degrade very quickly. These markers were proved to be useful to study their population genetics and identification of individuals in the landscape of the Peruvian Amazon. Description It is about long, of which more than half is the pointed, graduated tail typical of all macaws, though the scarlet macaw has a larger percentage of tail than the other large macaws. The average weight is