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A bright yellow golden conure with green wing feathers perched in a tree.
Photo: Ironman br, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Golden Conure

Guaruba guarouba

A bright yellow-and-green Brazilian parrot whose flock members help raise each other's chicks.

🦜 Parrots
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About the Golden Conure

Golden conures, also called golden parakeets, are 13 to 14 inches long. They are bright yellow with dark green flight feathers and a gray beak. They live in rainforests, flooded forests and grasslands near rivers in the Amazon basin of northeastern Brazil, and eat fruits, buds and flowers. Their scientific name, Guaruba, comes from a Tupi word meaning "yellow bird."[1]

Quick facts

Scientific name
Guaruba guarouba[1]
Size
13 to 14 inches long.[1]
Diet
Fruits, buds and flowers; sometimes crops like corn.[1]
Habitat
Tropical rainforests, seasonally flooded forests and grasslands near rivers.[1]
Where it lives
The Amazon basin of northeastern Brazil.[1]
Group life
Flocks that live, feed, breed and sleep together.[1]
Babies
2 or 3 eggs in a tall tree, incubated about 30 days.[1]
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN Red List, assessed 2018).[2]

Fun facts

  • Golden conures' colors match Brazil's national flag.[1]
  • Flock helpers raise chicks with the parents.[1]
  • They're also called Queen of Bavaria conures.[1]

Vocabulary

conure
A small to medium-size parrot of Central and South America with a long tail.
flock
A group of birds that live and travel together.
fragmentation
When a habitat is broken into small, separate pieces.
pet trade
Buying and selling wild animals as pets, which can take too many from the wild.
vulnerable
A conservation label meaning a species faces a high risk of dying out in the wild.

See it in person

Sources

  1. [1] San Francisco Zoo & Gardens. “Golden conure.” https://www.sfzoo.org/golden-conure/ (accessed 2026-10-02)
  2. [2] IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. “Guaruba guarouba (Golden Parakeet).” https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22724703/132029835 (accessed 2026-10-02)

Facts last checked 2026-10-02.

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