They are popular in aviculture because of their striking color, ability to talk, ready availability in the marketplace, and close bonding to humans.

The blue-and-yellow macaw was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[2] This macaw is now one of the eight extant species within the Ara genus, first proposed in 1799 by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède.

The specific epithet ararauna comes from the Tupi Arára úna meaning "big dark parrot" for the hyacinth macaw.

[7] As well as nuts, it will also feed on seeds, fruits, vegetable matter, bark and leaves, also insects, snails and small animals.

[8][9] This species occurs in Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela, Guyana, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay.

Between 1999 and 2003, wild-caught blue-and-yellow macaws were translocated from Guyana to Trinidad, in an attempt to reestablish the species in a protected area around the Nariva Swamp;[11] despite this, the IUCN still lists them as extirpated from the country.

A small breeding population descended from introduced birds is found in Puerto Rico,[1] and another has inhabited Miami-Dade County, Florida, since the mid-1980s.

[13] The blue-and-yellow macaw is on the verge of being extirpated in Paraguay, but it still remains widespread and fairly common in a large part of mainland South America.

The blue-and-yellow macaw has been noted to blush its bare facial skin and fluff the feathers of its cheeks, head and nape when interacting with humans.