Red-tailed and Glossy Black Cockatoos

Described by French naturalist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest in 1826, the genus Calyptorhynchus has five species. They are all mostly black in colour, and the taxa may be differentiated partly by size and partly by small areas of red, grey and yellow plumage especially in the tail feathers. It is the sole genus of the "dark cockatoo" subfamily Calyptorhynchinae. Studies based on the mitochondrial DNA 12S gene fragment suggested that other sexually dichromatic species, the gang-gang cockatoo...