Beautiful Feathers， Cost Of Life

The 2011 animated film "Crazy Adventure in Rio” shows the viewers the capital of Brazil——Rio DE Janeiro， a beautiful， colorful and enthusiastic city. The little Cyanopsitta Spixii called Blue and its partners： the Paroariacoronata called Pedro， the Serinuscanaria called Nico and the Ramphastostoco called Rafael danced samba happily in the carnival of Rio， they avoided being caught by the villain， sunflower cockatoos called Nigel.

The Cyanopsitta Spixii in the film， is also known as Spix macaw. It was described by European naturalists as early as 1638 in Brazil. In 1832， it is considered as a separate species. The Cyanopsitta Spixii is smaller than the common green-winged macaw and the blue and gold macaw， and about 50 cm in length. They live oringinally in the Tabebuiaaurea forest of the San Francisco river valley ， in the northeast of Brazil， mainly feed on nuts. From Every November to the next March， the Cyanopsitta Spixii will build nests in the tree holes of the tabeuiaaureas. If there are no special circumstances， the nest will be in use year after year. In about 10000 species of birds around the world， 20% of the species are parrots， the parrots have beautiful feathers and are smart， easy to be close to people. In the 1980 s， there are 50000 to 150000 parrots being smuggled into the United States from South America. In 2008， a data showed that in Mexico， because of the illegal hunting and trade， four kinds of carrots including the Aratingacanicularis and the Amazonaalbifrons declined by 20% in amount in the past decade. And in the process between the illegal hunting and the final sale， there were as many as 75% of the parrots might died of a stress response， disease， rough handling， asphyxia and dehydration.

Artificial Reproduction，

Full of Difficulties

This year， the "Rio 2" will hit theaters， in has released a trailer. We can see that in the new movie， Blue and Pearl will have their third child. And people in the Amazon rain forest found a group of Cyanopsitta Spixiis， and among them were Pearl's father and her former boyfriend. Blue is going to visit the “father-in-law”， and the sunflower cockatoos Nigel will come back again with his new accomplices.

If the film's story comes true， it would be as a big event of birds. The artificial breeding Cyanopsitta Spixiis are mostly the descendants of the seven wild Cyanopsitta Spixiis captured in 1982——but inbreeding can bring problems of infertility and low survival rate of chicks. As the parrots mainly choose their partners rather than comply with the humans "arranged marriage"， the scientists efforts to arrange carrots with relatively far blood relationships together always fail . If you can find live Cyanopsitta Spixiis in the wild， it is likely to ease this problem. Now the scientists are studying on the artificial insemination to solve the problem of inbreeding， and made a breakthrough in 2013： 2 chicks were produced by artificial insemination pregnancy. We hope that in the near future， we can see the offsprings of Blue and Pearl in the movie go back to the wild， this beautiful intelligent species could continue in the nature.