§ Species Cacatua is a genus of cockatoos found from the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands to Australia.

They have a primarily white plumage (in some species tinged pinkish or yellow), an expressive crest, and a black (subgenus Cacatua) or pale (subgenus Licmetis) bill.

Although the name Cacatua was used in 1760 by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson, he did not include it in his table of genera and Brisson is not recognised as the authority by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).

[3][4][5] The type species was designated as the white cockatoo by Tommaso Salvadori in 1891.

[6][7] The name Cacatua is from the Malay language words Kakatuá and Kakak-tuá for the cockatoos.