Pionites, Heine, 1890

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 : 39

Pionites

Pionites has traditionally comprised two species of medium-sized, stocky, short-tailed parrots that largely replace each other on either side of the Amazon river system. Within Pionites , del Hoyo and Collar (2014) and Collar et al. (2020) advocate recognition of three species within Pionites leucogaster ( P. leucogaster , P. xanthurus , and P. xanthomerius ) based on plumage and leg and foot colors, including a reported leapfrog pattern in uppertail color (sensu Remsen, 1984). Collar et al. (2020) acknowledge intergradation in these traits at zones of contact between the various forms but cite no primary data. We note clear inconsistencies in at least one of these traits, leg and foot color, as assigned to photographs of wild birds in Collar et al. (2020), i.e., plainly pale colored legs and feet in birds cited by Collar et al. (2020) as P. xanthomerius , which is putatively dark legged. Although P. l. xanthomerius and P. melanocephalus palidus hybridize along the Ucayali River ( Haffer, 1977; Moncrieff et al., 2021), the extent of the hybrid zone seems fairly restricted, which might indicate substantial levels of reproductive isolation between these species. Given the scant and inconsistent current evidence for elevating subspecies of P. leucogaster to species, we advocate retention of only P. leucogaster and P. melanocephalus as the two species in Pionites until more in-depth genetic and phenotypic research is conducted.