Macaws are king-sized members of the parrot family and have typical parrot features. Their large, strong, curved beaks are designed to crush nuts and seeds. Their strong, agile toes are used like hands to grasp things. Loud, screeching and squawking voices help make their presence known in dense rain forests. Find out more!

Macaws are intelligent and curious birds that like to explore and keep busy. They are very aware of their surroundings, which is necessary to keep watch for predators. As social birds, they spend a lot of time interacting with their mates and their family groups. Macaws have been known to use items as tools, and they like to play with interesting objects they find.

Macaws eat a variety of ripe and unripe fruits, nuts and seeds, flowers, leaves, and stems of plants, and sources of protein like insects and snails. Some species specialize in eating the hard fruits and nuts of palm trees.

One trick they use for this is to forage in fields where cattle live. The cattle eat the palm nuts, which pass through their digestive system and come out the other end with the nut’s hard coating removed. This makes the nuts softer and easier for the macaws to eat!