Northern Rosella

Platycercus venustus

Heinrich Kuhl was the first to describe the species, in 1820.

Platycercus combines the Greek platus (broad or flat) and kerkos (tail); venustus is Latin for beautiful or lovely.

Edward Lear, Platycercus brownii (Brown’s Parrakeet) 1832

Author’s note: This is the first published illustration of the Northern Rosella.

Robert Brown was the botanist on Matthew Flinders’ voyage mapping the Australian coast in 1801. Brown may have seen the bird when the Investigator stopped at Strong Tide Passage, Queensland, and the expedition’s natural history artist, Ferdinand Bauer, illustrated it. The species was name for Brown for a time, however it was not formally described for another two decades, when young Edward Lear began his ambitious project to illustrate the world’s parrots.

William T. Cooper, Northern Rosella (Platycercus venustus) 1969