Shortly after our friend and colleague Gary R Bortolotti passed away in 2011, his widow Heather Trueman sent JLT ten photographs of parrots that Gary had taken in Brazil. In one of these images, we saw a flying chestnut-fronted macaw (Ara severus) carrying in its beak a defleshed fruit of the motacu palm (Attalea phalerata; upper-right arrow in Figure 1); upon enlarging this picture for publication in Frontiers, we noticed another macaw transporting a smaller-sized seed (lower-left arrow in Figure 1). Gary's photograph had captured what has been described as an unusual behavior: active seed dispersal by parrots. The unexpected nature of this observation was reinforced during discussions with colleagues who specialize in avian frugivory and seed dispersal. As they argued - and contrary to well-recognized avian seed dispersers such as frugivorous passerines, trogons, and toucans, which typically swallow whole fruits and disperse seeds after gut passage - parrots handle and destroy fruits in situ to eat the pulp or to gain access to the seeds.