Overlap in the wing shape of migratory, nomadic and sedentary grass parrots

Bird wing shape is highly correlated with mobility, and vagile species have more pointed wing tips than sedentary ones. Most studies of bird wing shape are biased to the northern hemisphere, and consider only two migratory syndromes (north-south migrants or sedentary species). There are major gaps in knowledge about the wing shapes of different taxa with other movement strategies (e.g. nomads) in the southern hemisphere. Parrots are a prominent southern hemisphere bird order with complex movement patterns, but their wing shapes are mostly unstudied. We test whether three metrics of wing shape of grass parrots (Neophema and Neopsephotus spp.) correspond to their purported migration syndromes (and other factors). We show that two strongly migratory grass parrots and an arid-adapted nomad had pointed wings, with flight feather longer distally and shorter proximally. However, purportedly sedentary species overlapped extensively with migrants and nomads in all aspects of wing shape, and taxo...