In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Moluccan king parrot 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] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.

Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Psittacus amboinensis and cited Brisson's work.

[7] Juvenile birds have a dark-brown bill tipped paler, greenish mantle, dark brown irises and red-tips to lateral tail feathers.

[12] It is generally uncommon due to habitat loss and capture for the parrot trade,[10] but remains locally common at least on the Sula Islands, Halmahera, and Buru.