Hoatzin

Description:

The Hoatzin is pheasant-sized, with a total length of 65 centimetres (26 in), with a long neck and small head. It has an unfeathered blue face with maroon eyes, and its head is topped by a spiky, rufous crest. The long, sooty-brown tail is broadly tipped buff. The upperparts are dark, sooty-brown-edged buff on the wing coverts, and streaked buff on the mantle and nape. The underparts are buff, but this is mainly visible when it opens its wings. The alternative name of "stinkbird" is derived from the bird's manure-like odour, caused by its digestive system. The Hoatzin is herbivorous, eating leaves and fruit, and has an unusual digestive system with an enlarged crop used for fermentation of vegetable matter, in a manner broadly analogous to the digestive system of mammalian ruminants

Habitat:

found in swamps, river rainforest and mangroves of the Amazon and the Orinoco delta in South America. The Hoatzin eats the leaves and to a lesser degree fruits and flowers of the plants which grow in the marshy and riverine habitats where it lives. It clambers around clumsily among the branches, and being quite tame (though they become stressed by frequent visits), often allows close approach and is reluctant to flush. The Hoatzin uses a leathery bump on the bottom of its crop to help balance itself on the branches. It was once thought that the species could only eat the leaves of arums and mangroves, but the species is now known to consume the leaves of over fifty species. One study undertaken in Venezuela found that the Hoatzins diet was 82% leaves, 10% flowers and 8% fruit.

Notes:

Also known as Stinkbird (see description for reason) or Canje Pheasant and notable for having chicks that possess claws on two of their wing digits.