[1] In 1758, English naturalist George Edwards described this species as the red-breasted parrakeet in his work Gleanings of Natural History.

"[2] In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the coconut lorikeet in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Ambon in Indonesia.

[3] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[4] Acknowledging both previous authors as having written about the same species, Carl Linnaeus formally described the coconut lorikeet in 1771 as Psittacus haematod.(us).

[8] Six subspecies are recognised:[9] "Coconut lorikeet" has been designated as the official common name for the species by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC).

[11] The species occupies a wide range of lowland and wooded hill habitats, including mangroves, rainforest, nypa forest, swamps, savanna and woodland.

It also occupies human-modified areas including coconut plantations, gardens, agricultural land and disturbed forest.

[citation needed] Nests are usually located in holes in decaying wood, such as hollows of eucalyptus trees,[12] at a height of 25 metres (82 ft) above the ground.