Scientific name: Ara macao (Linnaeus, 1758). CITES status: CITES I - PROTECTED.

Distribution: Oaxaca, Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Bolivia, Brazilië, Guayana, Island Trinidad.

Scarlet Macaws are large colorful parrots that live in Central and South America. Scarlet Macaws prefer undisturbed rainforest. They eat fruits, nuts, flowers and nectar,
and they often eat unripe fruit and nuts that other animals avoid. These macaws also eat clay from river banks. No one is sure why they do this, but the clay seems to be
important to them. One hypothesis is that the clay helps the parrots to digest poisonous chemicals found in the unripe fruit they eat. The Scarlet Macaw have
proportionately large hooked bills that resemble those of birds of prey.