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The animal on the cover of Generative Deep Learning is a painted parakeet (Pyrrhura picta). The Pyrrhura genus falls under the family Psittacidae, one of three families of parrots. Within its subfamily Arinae are several macaw and parakeet species of the Western Hemisphere. The painted parakeet inhabits the coastal forest and mountains of northeastern South America.

Bright green feathers cover most of a painted parakeet, but they are blue above the beak, brown in the face, and reddish in the breast and tail. Most strikingly, the feathers on the painted parakeet’s neck look like scales; the brown center is outlined in off-white. This combination of colors camouflages the birds in the rainforest.

Painted parakeets tend to feed in the forest canopy, where their green plumage masks them best. They forage in flocks of 5 to 12 birds for a wide variety of fruits, seeds, and flowers. Occasionally, when feeding below the canopy, painted parakeets will eat algae from forest pools. They grow to about 9 inches in length and live for 13 to 15 years. A clutch of painted parakeet chicks is usually around five eggs, which are less than one inch wide at hatching.

Many of the animals on O’Reilly’s covers are endangered; all of them are important to the world.

The cover illustration is by Karen Montgomery, based on a black and white engraving from Shaw’s Zoology. The cover fonts are Gilroy Semibold and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.