In the 18th century, yellow-crested cockatoos were imported into Europe as pets and these birds were described by various naturalists. In 1738 English naturalist
Eleazar Albin included a description and illustration of the "Cockatoo or White crested parrot" in his
A Natural History of Birds based on a bird displayed at "The Tiger" tavern on
Tower Hill in London. In 1760 the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson included "Le Kakatoes à hupe jaune" in his
Onithologie based on a live bird that he had seen in Paris. Then in 1764,
George Edwards included the "Lesser white cockatoo with a yellow crest" in his
Gleanings of natural history from a pet bird kept at a home in Essex, and in 1779 French polymath
Comte de Buffon included the bird in his
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. When the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin revised and expanded
Carl Linnaeus's
Systema Naturae in 1788 he included the yellow-crested cockatoo based on the accounts of earlier naturalists. He placed it with the parrots in the
genus Psittacus and coined the
binomial name Psittacus sulphureus. The
type locality is the island of
Sulawesi, Indonesia. The yellow-crested cockatoo is now one of 11 species placed in the genus
Cacatua that was introduced in 1817 by
Louis Pierre Vieillot. in a Hong Kong park
Subspecies According to the International Ornithological Congress, 5
subspecies are recognized: Until 2023, the
citron-crested cockatoo (
Cacatua citrinocristata) was considered by the IOC to be a subspecies of yellow-crested cockatoo. ==Breeding==