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wer mandible crushes the husk, whereupon the seed is rotated in the bill and the remaining husk is removed. They may use their foot sometimes to hold large seeds in place. Parrots are granivores rather than seed dispersers, and in many cases where they are seen consuming fruit, they are only eating the fruit to get at the seed. As seeds often have poisons that protect them, parrots carefully remove seed coats and other chemically defended fruit parts prior to ingestion. Many species in the Americas, Africa, and Papua New Guinea consume clay, which releases minerals and absorbs toxic compounds from the gut. Chestnut-fronted macaws, yellow-crowned amazons, and dusky-headed parakeets at a clay lick in Ecuador Geographical range and body size predominantly explains diet composition of Neotropical parrots rather than phylogeny. Lories, lorikeets, hanging parrots, and swift parrots are primarily nectar and pollen consumers, and have tongues with b
rush tips to collect it, as well as some specialised gut adaptations. Many other species also consume nectar when it becomes available. Some parrot species prey on animals, especially invertebrate larvae. Golden-winged parakeets prey on water snails, the New Zealand kea can, though uncommonly, hunts adult sheep, and the Antipodes parakeet, another New Zealand parrot, enters the burrows of nesting grey-backed storm petrels and kills the incubating adults. Some cockatoos and the New Zealand kaka excavate branches and wood to feed on grubs; the bulk of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo's diet is made up of insects. Some extinct parrots had carnivorous diets. Pseudasturids were probably cuckoo- or puffbird-like insectivores, while messelasturids were raptor-like carnivores. Breeding With few exceptions, parrots are monogamous breeders who nest in cavities and hold no territories other than their nesting sites. The pair bonds of the parrots and cockatoos are strong and a pair remains
close during the nonbreeding season, even if they join larger flocks. As with many birds, pair bond formation is preceded by courtship displays; these are relatively simple in the case of cockatoos. In Psittacidae parrots' common breeding displays, usually undertaken by the ma
