Animal Guide

The Hyacinth Macaw is the biggest member of the Psittacidae family, with a bright cobalt blue body and dazzling splashes of yellow around its eyes and beak. It's long tail and large pointed beak are also characteristic.
The Hyacinth Macaw's main source of nutrition is the palm nut. It cracks open the nuts with its hard beak, eats the flesh, and drinks the juice. (A single Hyacinth Macaw is said to eat 350 palm nuts a day.)
They generally eat at the tops of trees, occasionally flying down to the ground to pick up fallen fruits.
They live in pairs or small families. They nest in holes in palm and other trees in river basins and hatch and raise two to three young at once, which leave the nest generally after about four months.

Hyacinth Macaws live in the forests and marshes of central Brazil in South America. They generally live out their lives in a single place.

They are characterized by living in the same place, although they have been known to travel long distances in search of food. The Hyacinth Macaw is traded as a pet, and has been over-hunted for stuffing or for use of its beautiful blue feathering in jewelry, as well as for food. It is calculated that over 10,000 of these birds were traded in the 1980s. The rainforests are also being cut down in order to exploit the land for agriculture, so lack of habitat is also one reason for the decline in the Hyacinth Macaws numbers. Currently, there are only between 2,500 and 10,000 of these birds living in the wild today. In response, the Brazilian government has direct major efforts to protect this endangered species.