Chachalaca

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Chachalaca
Rufous-vented Chachalaca - Guacharaca del Norte (Ortalis ruficauda) (8629080871).jpg
Rufous-vented chachalaca, Ortalis ruficauda
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Cracidae
Subfamily: Cracinae
Genus: Ortalis
Merrem, 1786
Type species
Phasianus motmot
Linnaeus, 1766
Species

16, see text.

Chachalacas are galliform birds from the genus Ortalis. These birds are found in wooded habitats in the far southern United States (Texas), [1] [2] Mexico, and Central and South America. They are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly common even near humans, as their relatively small size makes them less desirable to hunters than their larger relatives. As agricultural pests, they have a ravenous appetite for tomatoes, melons, beans, and radishes and can ravage a small garden in short order. They travel in packs of six to twelve. [3] Their nests are made of sticks, twigs, leaves, or moss and are generally frail, flat structures only a few feet above the ground. During April, they lay from three to five buffy white eggs, the shell of which is very rough and hard. [4] They somewhat resemble the guans, and the two have commonly been placed in a subfamily together, though the chachalacas are probably closer to the curassows. [5]

Contents

Taxonomy

The genus Ortalis was introduced (as Ortalida) by the German naturalist Blasius Merrem in 1786 with the little chachalaca (Ortalis motmot) as the type species. [6] [7] The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek word όρταλις, meaning "pullet" [8] or "domestic hen." [9] The common name derives from the Nahuatl verb chachalaca, meaning "to chatter." With a glottal stop at the end, chachalacah was an alternate name for the bird known as the chachalahtli. All these words likely arose as an onomatopoeia for the four-noted cackle of the plain chachalaca (O. vetula). [10] The genus contains 16 species. [11]

Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data tentatively suggest that the chachalacas emerged as a distinct lineage during the Oligocene, somewhere around 40–20 mya, possibly being the first lineage of modern cracids to evolve; this does agree with the known fossil record – including indeterminate, cracid-like birds – which very cautiously favors a north-to-south expansion of the family. [5]

Species

ImageCommon NameScientific nameDistribution
066 - PLAIN CHACHALACA (11-14-2016) national butterfly center, missin, hidalgo co, tx -03 (31012955630).jpg Plain chachalaca Ortalis vetulaSouthern Texas, Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, northern Guatemala, northern Honduras and just into the north central part of Nicaragua
Gray-headed Chachalaca (6901564788).jpg Grey-headed chachalaca Ortalis cinereicepseastern Honduras to northwestern Colombia (from South Chocó to the upper Atrato)
Chestnut-winged Chachalaca.jpg Chestnut-winged chachalaca Ortalis garrulaColombia
Ortalis ruficauda 1.jpg Rufous-vented chachalaca Ortalis ruficaudanortheast Colombia and Venezuela, Tobago, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada
Rufous-headed Chachalaca.jpg Rufous-headed chachalaca Ortalis erythropteraColombia and adjacent Ecuador and Peru
Chachalaca Vientre Castano (15954400939) (cropped).jpg Rufous-bellied chachalaca Ortalis wagleriMexico
Ortalis poliocephala (24328217339).jpg West Mexican chachalaca Ortalis poliocephalaMexico, from Jalisco to Oaxaca
Chaco Chachalaca (Ortalis canicollis).jpg Chaco chachalaca Ortalis canicollisArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay
" chacha o chachalaca " Ave silvestre de El Salvador. - panoramio.jpg White-bellied chachalaca Ortalis leucogastraCosta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua
Ortalis columbiana.JPG Colombian chachalaca Ortalis columbianaColombia.
Ortalis guttata, Speckled Chachalaca (cropped).jpg Speckled chachalaca Ortalis guttatawestern Amazon Basin
Ortalis (guttata) araucuan (2818916890).jpg East Brazilian chachalaca Ortalis araucuanAtlantic forests in eastern Brazil
Passaro em Viamao 030.jpg Scaled chachalaca Ortalis squamatasoutheastern Brazil
Ortalis motmot - Little Chachalaca; Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas, Brazil.jpg Little chachalaca Ortalis motmotnorthern Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and Venezuela
Ortalis ruficeps - Chestnut-headed Chachalaca; Serra dos Carajas, Para, Brazil.jpg Chestnut-headed chachalaca Ortalis ruficepsnorth central Brazil
Ortalis superciliaris) - Buff-browed Chachalaca; Rio Mearim, Arari, Maranhao, Brazil.jpg Buff-browed chachalaca Ortalis superciliarisBrazil

Prehistoric species

The cracids have a very poor fossil record, essentially being limited to a few chachalacas. The prehistoric species of the present genus, however, indicate that chachalacas most likely evolved in North or northern Central America:

The Early Miocene fossil Boreortalis from Florida is also a chachalaca; it may actually be referrable to the extant genus.

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darter</span> Family of birds

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curassow</span> Subfamily of birds

Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. They comprise the largest-bodied species of the cracid family. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America; a single species of Crax ranges north to Mexico. They form a distinct clade which is usually classified as the subfamily Cracinae.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plain chachalaca</span> Species of bird

The plain chachalaca is a large bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae. It breeds in tropical and subtropical environments from mezquital thickets in the Rio Grande Valley in southernmost Texas, United States to northernmost Costa Rica. In Central America, this species occurs in the Pacific lowlands from Chiapas, Mexico to northern Nicaragua and as a separate population in Costa Rica, where its range is separated by a short distance, as a disjunct population.

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The horned curassow, or southern helmeted curassow, is a species of bird in the family Cracidae found in humid tropical and subtropical forests. It was first described by James Bond and Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee in 1939 from a specimen collected in Bolivia, and further birds that were described from Peru in 1971 were thought to be a new subspecies. However, the taxonomical position of the birds found in Peru in 1971 is unclear. The horned curassow as originally described is endemic to Bolivia. It is a large, predominantly black bird with a distinctive casque on its forehead. It is an uncommon bird with a limited range and is suffering from habitat loss, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being "critically endangered".

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References

  1. Marion, Wayne R. (September 1974). "Status of the Plain Chachalaca in South Texas". The Wilson Bulletin. 86 (3): 200–205. JSTOR   4160499.
  2. Sherr, Evelyn B. (2015). Marsh Mud and Mummichogs: An Intimate Natural History of Coastal Georgia. U. Of Georgia Press. p. 96. Archived from the original on 2015-07-23. In the 1920s Howard E. Coffin introduced a breeding population of chachalacas to Sapelo Island, and this breeding population still exists.
  3. "Gray-headed Chachalaca". neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/home. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  4. "THE BIRD BOOK".
  5. 1 2 Pereira, S.L.; Baker, A.J.; Wajntal, A. (2002). "Combined nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences resolve generic relationships within the Cracidae (Galliformes, Aves)". Systematic Biology. 51 (6): 946–958. doi: 10.1080/10635150290102519 . PMID   12554460.
  6. Merrem, Blasius (1786). Avium rariorum et minus cognitarum : icones et descriptiones collectae et e germanicis latinae factae (in Latin). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Ex Bibliopolio Io. Godofr. Mülleriano. p. 40.
  7. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 16.
  8. Waue, Roland H. (1999). Heralds of Spring in Texas. Texas A&M University Press. p. 18. ISBN   9780890968796. Archived from the original on 2017-11-27.
  9. Arnott, William Geoffrey (2007). Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z. Routledge. p. 235. ISBN   978-0-415-23851-9. Archived from the original on 2014-06-11.
  10. Leopold, Aldo Starker (1972). Wildlife of Mexico: the Game birds and Mammals . University of California Press. p.  212. ISBN   978-0-520-00724-6.
  11. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (2020). "Pheasants, partridges, francolins". IOC World Bird List Version 10.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  12. Wetmore, Alexander. 1923. Avian Fossils from the Miocene and Pliocene of Nebraska. Bulletin American Museum of Natural History XLVIII pp. 483-457.Web access

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