Cool Stuff You Might Like To Know!
- Hoatzin birds are more likely to be sociable among cows or sheep than other birds (it is nice to find animals that are accepting of other species)
- The adult birds can produce an unpleasant odor for protection…I guess you would have to be smelly if you are going to hang around cows all day!
- The young birds are able to hide under water, however, the adults cannot swim!
- It’s a really noisy bird with a number of groans, croaks, hisses and grunts that it uses to communicate.
- They have claws on the bend of each wing to help them move around and defend themselves. In fact chicks use these to hide and scramble under water whenever predators may be lurking!
Is It A Hoatzin Or Something Else?
The Hoatzin bird actually ha s a number of different names for it. Let’s see if you can pronounce these! There is the scientific name, “Opisthocomus Hoazin” (meaning pheasant with a crest down it’s back), but can also be called the Shanso, Hoactzin, Stinkbird (my personal favourite) or even the Canje Pheasant!
This colourful tropical bird is found in the Amazon in swamps, riverine forests and mangroves of the Amazon as well as being found in the Orinoco delta in South America.
A Well Balanced Diet
The Hoatzin eats mainly leaves and also a smaller number of fruits and flowers of the plants that grow in the marshy areas it walks. It’s a bit of a clumsy animal but it manages to eat by balancing itself using a leathery bump on the bottom of it’s “crop” (the crop is part of it’s gullet or neck that aids with digestion of food – it’s a bit like a muscular pouch) while feeding. When it eats the food, it uses a bacterial fermentation in the front part of the gut to break down the vegetable and leaf materials that are eaten.
Size me up!
The Hoatzin is about the side of a Pigeon or Pheasant and has a long neck with a small head with a Blue face and Maroon coloured eyes. Overall it measures in the region of 65 cm (26 inches). It’s one stinky odour producing bird that will leave a bad taste in a predator’s mouth, so be careful!
