Although the bird is locally common, in places it has been adversely affected by clearing of the palms for use as posts, or to allow cattle ranching; also by capture for the pet trade.

[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[4] The red-bellied macaw is now the only species placed in the genus Orthopsittaca that was introduced by the American ornithologist Robert Ridgway in 1912.

[7] The red-bellied macaw is medium-sized, about 300 g (11 oz) in weight and about 46 cm (18 in) in length including its long pointed tail.

The plumage is mostly green; the cere and much of the face are covered with bare mustard-yellow skin, and the irises are dark brown.

The chin, throat and upper chest are greyish with some green scalloping, and the lower abdomen ("belly") has a large maroon patch.

Its southern limit in Brazil is the south-central and northwestern cerrado bordering the Amazon Basin.

They choose large stands of these palms that have an overabundance of woodpecker holes as roosting sites.

Because of lack of commercial availability of moriche palm nuts, shelled unsalted peanuts have been used as a staple in the diet of captive birds.

However, he decided to keep his method a secret for many years, as he did not wish to be responsible for restarting the trade in wild-caught macaws from the area, which previous to this had significantly reduced due to the high mortality rates, and therefore lack of commercial viability of trade in the species.