Hoatzin
ABOUT
Hoatzins are a large tropical bird native to South America in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. They are the size of a pheasant and don’t migrate like many other birds do; instead, they stay in tropical forests, swamps, and mangroves their whole lives.
Hoatzins are herbivores and feed mostly on plants, but can also
occasionally eat flowers and fruits. After that, they do something that no
other bird on the planet has evolved to do, like cows and goats: they ferment
the vegetation. Because the crop in which the fermentation takes place is very
large and heavy, these unique birds are unable to fly well and do not do it
very often just because the digestion takes a long time and they don’t have a
lot of energy to spare.
HABITAT AND FAMILY LIFE
Hoatzins live in family groups around water and are most active during
the early morning and evening, when they eat. During the other part of the day,
they usually rest and are famous for sunbathing with their wings spread so that
they can get warm. They are monogamous (meaning they form a lifetime couple
with a single other individual) and mate during the rainy season
(December–May). Females lay around 3 eggs in a nest that’s necessarily over
water; later, both parents take care of the hatched chicks after incubating
them for around 30 days. Hoatzin babies have evolved a quite strange defensive
mechanism in which, when a predator comes, they jump out of the nest into the
water below it and swim back to the surface. Then, using specialized claws on
each wing, they climb their way up the tree and enter the nest again. Later on,
they lose the claws after they get to be around 70–100 days old.
But did you know that very popular birds, like chickens, geese, swans, and even ostriches, all have wing claws too?
CONSERVATION
So that was it! – Now you know more about the Hoatzin. I hope you learned a lot regarding the spectacular wildlife on our planet with The Wildlife Echo!
0 Comments