Sapphire-rumped Parrotlet

The sapphire-rumped parrotlet is 17 to 18 cm (6.7 to 7.1 in) long and weighs 54 to 66 g (1.9 to 2.3 oz). Its body is mostly green, darker above than below, and with a blue lower back and rump. The nominate subspecies' forehead and crown are olive brown and those of T. p. viridiceps are green; both have a white eye ring. The species has dusky brown scapulars that appear as a "V" when the wings are folded; females' are paler than males'. Their carpal bar is violet blue. The male's central tail feathers are green and the others red with blackish tips; female's add a green band near the tip. Immatures resemble females but are duller overall and have an olive rump.

The nominate subspecies of the sapphire-rumped parrotlet is found across northern South America from Cerro Duida in Venezuela through the Guianas and northern Amazonian Brazil to the Atlantic in the state of Maranhão. Subspecies T. p. viridiceps is found from Cerro Duida east into northwestern Brazil to the upper Rio Negro and west and south through southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, and northeastern Peru. In the tepui region where Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil meet, the sapphire-rumped parrotlet inhabits evergreen montane forest up to about 1,400 m (4,600 ft). Elsewhere it occurs in lowland rainforest favoring várzea, but also savanna, remaining woodlots in otherwise cleared landscapes, and isolated mountains in the Guianan lowlands. In Brazil it locally reaches 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

The sapphire-rumped parrotlet mostly feeds on fruits; those of figs (Ficus) and members of several other families have been identified. "In NE Peru recorded feeding on leaves, shoots and bark of Terminalia catappa (Combretaceae) as well as on dead wood."