Platycercus elegans flaveolus

1 Yellow Rosella at Eastern Hill Reserve

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Identification history

	Platycercus elegans flaveolus	15 Dec 2023	Darcy
	Platycercus elegans flaveolus	3 Aug 2021	PaulF

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4 comments

Darcy wrote:

4 Aug 2021

Looks like it might be a hybrid between a crimson and yellow rosella. They're both subspecies of P. elegans, and can interbreed, hence the yellow body but with a lot of orange bits. It's pretty common to see hybrids around albury-wodonga

PaulF wrote:

4 Aug 2021

I see what you mean Darcy. Interesting, I have read an article in the conversation that may be helping with disease resistance.

https://theconversation.com/colour-variability-in-crimson-rosellas-is-linked-to-a-virus-31668

Darcy wrote:

4 Aug 2021

Ah cool! Yeah, I find crimson's to be a really interesting species. It's what's known as a ring-species, where essentially all the various subspecies are on the brink of splitting off into separate species, but they're not quite there yet, as these hybrids attest to. Interestingly, crimsons have been found to be able to tell the various subspecies apart using feather odour. This article makes for quite an interesting read, in particular I like the map near the start showing the distribution of the various subspecies, and the 'hybrid zone' between the crimson and yellow rosellas, which extends from around albury-wodonga, up to near gundagi: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347214002887?casa_token=fqKaMOunzQkAAAAA:rmyyyn52ee1kmkqfJhloMgVyxgq6MBACIbq0lLVWl3J4KyN7PEtJraFl7TIcNR7az_eSh1Rs0m8

KylieWaldon wrote:

4 Aug 2021

I can hear the difference between the call of a yellow rosella and a crimson rosella. And they clearly think they are different - I caught a group of crimson rosellas chasing a yellow rosella one day - they were interested but nearly chased it to death!

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