Psittinus, Blyth, 1842

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 : 52

Psittinus , Psittacula , Himalayapsitta , and Palaeornis

Long treated in Psittacula sensu lato, the genera Psittacula , Himalayapsitta , and Palaeornis comprise medium- to large-sized long-tailed parrots that are predominantly green in plumage and often with colored or bicolored bills. They variously have distinctively colored heads and nuchal collars or, in the absence of a collar, distinctively colored facial areas and bold, black submalar stripes. Colored patches on the wing coverts vary in size from a small shoulder patch to large covering most of the greater wing coverts.

Nonmonophyly of Psittacula has been reported in several studies, which have all found Tanygnathus to be nested within it ( Groombridge et al., 2004; Kundu et al., 2012; Jackson et al., 2015; Podsiadlowski et al., 2017). However, taxonomic recognition of Psittacula sensu lato has persisted despite its established nonmonophyly for two decades. Braun et al. (2019) proposed a major taxonomic revision of a subclade within Psittaculini ( Tanygnathus , Psittinus , Psittacula , and Prioniturus ) to recognize only monophyletic genera as follows († denoting extinct species): Himalayapsitta (himalayana, finschii , roseata, cyanocephala), Nicopsitta (columboides, calthrapae), Belocercus ( longicauda ), Psittacula ( alexandri , derbiana ), Palaeornis ( † wardi , eupatria; see Hume, 2007, and Podsiadlowski et al., 2017, for placement of † Mascarinus Lesson, 1831 , within this group), and Alexandrinus (krameri, † exsul , and eques including echo).