The Blue-eyed Cockatoo (Cacatua ophthalmica) is a large, approximately 50 centimetres (20 in) long, mainly white cockatoo with a mobile crest, a black beak, and a light blue rim of featherless skin around each eye, that gives this species its name.
Like all cockatoos and many parrots, the Blue-eyed Cockatoo can use one of its zygodactyl feet to hold objects and to bring food to its beak whilst standing on the other foot; nevertheless, amongst bird species as a whole this is relatively unusual.
The Blue-eyed Cockatoo is a large, approximately 50 centimetres (20 in) long, mainly white cockatoo with an erectile yellow and white crest, a black beak, dark grey legs, and a light blue rim of featherless skin around each eye, that gives this species its name.
The sexes are very similar in appearance. Some males have a dark brown iris and some females have a reddish brown iris, but this small difference is not always reliable as a gender indicator. The Blue-eyed Cockatoo is easily mistaken for the Yellow-crested and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, but has a more rounded crest with more white to the frontal part, and a brighter blue eye-ring.
The Blue-eyed Cockatoo is endemic to lowland and hill forests of New Britain in Papua New Guinea, and it is the only cockatoo in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Initially classified as a species of Least Concern by the IUCN in 2004, it is suspected to have become much rarer in recent times than was assumed previously. Consequently it was uplisted toVulnerable in 2008.