It is one of Australia's best known birds, but experts now agree that the rainbow lorikeet is actually six different species.
The change has been a long time coming, but editor of Australian BirdLife Magazine, Sean Dooley, said the official lists, or taxonomies, of bird species were all in agreement.
"It's really only in the last couple of years [that] all of the major taxonomies, including the one that BirdLife Australia follows, which is from BirdLife International, have had another look at all of the different populations of rainbow lorikeets in Australia and New Guinea and the Islands to the north," Mr Dooley said.
"They've realised that there are not just two different species, [but] that there are at least six different species, so Australia now has three types of rainbow lorikeets."
Australia's number one bird
Australia has some iconic bird species, from kookaburras to cockatoos, magpies to rosellas, finches to falcons.
But when Australians were asked to record the birds in their backyards, one species ruled them all.
"Through the BirdLife Australia's Aussie Backyard Bird Count each year, [which] we've done for six years now, the rainbow lorikeet has been the number one bird recorded right across the country," Mr Dooley said.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-19/rainbow-lorikeet-species-split-into-six/11806318
