The common name commemorates pioneering naturalist and collector Andreas Reischek, who collected specimens of the parrot in 1888 and who named it Platycercus hochstetteri for the son of his friend, Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter, who made a geological survey of New Zealand.
•
Reischek’s Parakeet was previously considered to be a subspecies of the Red-crowned Parakeet C. novaezelandiae, which it resembles in appearance, but was later lumped with the Macquarie Parakeet from Macquarie Island in a 2001 paper by Wee Ming Boon and others following an examination of the molecular systematics of the genus which found that many of the Red-crowned Parakeet subspecies should be elevated to full species.
Rose-ringed Parakeet | Grey-headed Parakeet | Red-masked Parakeet | Red-crowned Parakeet | Andreas Reischek | Pacific Parakeet | Finsch's Parakeet | Blue-crowned Parakeet |
It is less gregarious than some of its relatives, and is usually in small groups outside the breeding season, when it often feeds with Brahminy Starlings.
Newton's Parakeet was first written about by the French Huguenot François Leguat in 1708, and was only mentioned a few times by other writers afterwards.
White-eyed Parakeets are sometimes confused with Finsch's Parakeets because both have the red and yellow epaulets under their wings.