Budgies are a one-species genus of Australian parrot
The budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus)—budgie, common or shell parakeet—is a small long-tailed seed-eating parrot. It is monotypic: the only species in Melopsittacus, itself the only genus in tribe Melopsittacini, yet related to lories and fig parrots.
Nobody is sure where the word budgerigar comes from. One idea links it to gidjirrigaa in the Aboriginal language Gamilaraay; another splices Australian slang budgery, meaning good, with gar, cockatoo, and some local accounts render the meaning as good food. The scientific name is easier: Melopsittacus is Greek for melodious parrot and undulatus Latin for wave-patterned. George Shaw described the bird in 1805 and John Gould gave it its current name in 1840. It was once thought to bridge two other Australian parrot genera because of its barred feathers, until DNA placed it beside the lories and fig parrots.
Wild birds average 18 centimetres long and 30 to 40 grams, green with black scalloping edged in yellow and a yellow face. Captive breeding has produced at least 32 primary colour mutations, allowing hundreds of combinations. The bare patch above the beak, the cere, reveals sex: bluish in most adult males, pale to brown in females. Budgies see in four colour channels, including ultraviolet, their plumage glows under UV light, and the UV-reflecting throat spots can tell individual birds apart.
In the wild they roam Australia's dry interior in flocks that shift with food and water, feeding mainly on grass and spinifex seeds and sometimes on ripening wheat. Drought pushes them toward woodland and coast. Their nomadism, and their knack for breeding on the move whenever rain brings a flush of seed, has carried them through harsh conditions for over five million years. They nest in large colonies and form monogamous pairs, and females tend to be the more dominant sex.
First recorded in 1805 and bred in captivity since the 19th century, they rank as the third most popular pet worldwide after dogs and cats. A feral colony near St. Petersburg, Florida lasted over 50 years before dying out in 2014.
Source: Budgerigar
