Diet and Foraging

Diet of the Lilac-crowned Parrot throughout the year comprises predominantly seeds (82% of diet) and fruits (9%) from 33 species of tree, though parrots also consume the larvae of galls on the leaves of Astronium graveolens, and occasionally bromeliad stalks (Renton 2001). Items consumed by parrots vary throughout the year, adjusting to temporal fluctuations in food resource availability (Renton 2001). In the dry season, the most important items in the diet of Lilac-crowned Parrots are seeds of Astronium graveolens, Brosimum alicastrum, Piranhea mexicana, Comocladia engleriana and fruits of Ficus insipida (Renton 2001). However, in the rainy season the predominant items in the diet are seeds of Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Eisenbeckia nesiotica, Jatropha spp. and fruits of Sciadodendron excelsum (Renton 2001). Lilac-crowned Parrots are important pre-dispersal seed predators, causing a total 56% loss of seed resources of Astronium graveolens through direct predation and waste of immature fruits (Villaseñor-Sánchez et al. 2010).