Parrots or Psittacines; order Psittaciformes) includes about 353 species of bird which are generally grouped into two families: the Cacatuidae (also called cockatoos), and the Psittacidae (also called true parrots). ------------------------------------ All members of the order have a characteristic curved beak shape with the upper mandible having slight mobility in the joint with the skull and a generally erect stance. All parrots are zygodactyl, having the four toes on each foot placed two at the front and two back. Parrots can be found in most of the warm parts of the world, including India, southeast Asia and west Africa, with one species – now extinct – in the United States (the Carolina Parakeet). By far the greatest number of parrot species, however, come from Australasia, South America and Central America.-----------The earliest known record of parrot-like birds dates to the late Cretaceous about 70 million years ago. A single 15 mm fragment from a lower bill found in Wyoming is similar to that of a modern lorikeet. It is not clear if this find should be classified as a parrot or not. ------------------------------------- Europe is the site of more extensive records from the Eocene (58 to 36 million years ago). Several fairly complete skeletons of parrot-like birds have been found in England and Germany. Some uncertainty remains, but on the whole it seems more likely that these are not true ancestors of the modern parrots, but are a related group which evolved in the Northern Hemisphere but have since died out. ---------------------------------------- The Southern Hemisphere does not have nearly as rich a fossil record for the period of interest as the Northern, and contains no known parrot-like remains earlier than the early to middle Miocene, around 20 million years ago. At this point, however, is found the first unambiguous parrot fossil (as opposed to a parrot-like one), an upper jaw which is indistinguishable from that of a modern white cockatoo .