Wattled curassow

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Wattled curassow
Wattled Curassow Crax globulosa Bird 1400px.jpg
Female at the National Aviary
Note reddish-buff crissum (the area around the cloaca)
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Cracidae
Genus: Crax
Species:
C. globulosa
Binomial name
Crax globulosa
Spix, 1825
Crax globulosa map.svg
Synonyms

Crax carunculata
Crax yarrellii

The wattled curassow (Crax globulosa) is a threatened member of the family Cracidae, the curassows, guans, and chachalacas. It is found in remote rainforests in the western Amazon basin in South America. Males have black plumage, except for a white crissum (the area around the cloaca), with curly feathers on the head and red bill ornaments and wattles. Females and juveniles are similar but lack the bill ornamentation and have a reddish-buff crissum area. The wattled curassow is the most ancient lineage of the southern Crax curassows. In captivity, it sometimes hybridises with the blue-billed curassow.

The habitat of the wattled curassow is gallery forests and seasonally-flooded forests where it feeds in small groups on the ground. The diet is largely fruit, but invertebrates and some small vertebrates are opportunistically taken. Little is known of its breeding habits, but it is known that the nest is built of sticks and leaves and two eggs are usually laid. The population of this species is declining. It is threatened by loss of habitat, as the rainforest is progressively cleared, and by hunting, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "endangered".

Description

Head and neck of an adult male Crax globulosa -National Aviary -Pittsburgh-8.jpg
Head and neck of an adult male

The wattled curassow is about 82–89 cm (32–35 in) long, and weighs around 2,500 g (88 oz). It is a large curassow lacking the white tail-tips found in many of these birds; the feathers along the crest of its head are curled forwards. Males have black plumage all over except for the white crissum. The irides are dark brown; legs, feet and bill are blackish. It has conspicuous crimson bill ornaments—a round red knob with bony core adorns the maxilla base, while the cere extends apically at least halfway under this knob and below the mandible base forms a small fleshy wattle. [2]

Females have black plumage just like the male, but their crissal area is reddish buff. In some, the remiges and sometimes the wing coverts have faint brownish marbling. Their bills and irides are also blackish, but their feet and legs are a greyish flesh color. They lack the bill knob and wattles, and their cere is bright orange-red. Young males have less well-developed facial ornaments, usually with a more yellowish hue like females do. [2]

The hatchlings are covered in brown down above and whitish down below.

Similar species

Adults look very much like those of the red-billed curassow (C. blumenbachii), whose males have only an indistinct maxilla knob. Its females have a blackish cere, rather pale legs and feet, and their wings—particularly the remiges—usually have distinct chestnut brown marbling. The black curassow subspecies C. alector erythrognatha, found north of the Solimões, has a cere like the wattled curassow female, but its bill is lighter and the crissum is white in both sexes. Young C. globulosa males are easily confused with those of the yellow-knobbed curassows (C. daubentoni), but the latter has a white tail-margin and yellow (not orange) bill wattle. All these similar species are allopatric however, with only C. a. erythrognatha occurring adjacent to the range of C. globulosa. [3]

Taxonomy and systematics

Wattled curassow by J. Smit. Crax globulosa J. Smit.jpg
Wattled curassow by J. Smit.

The wattled curassow is one of the Crax species described in 1825 by Johann Baptist von Spix; the type locality is the Solimões (middle Amazon River) region. Its scientific name Crax globulosa can be translated as "knobbed curassow". Crax is a term for curassows introduced by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his 1760s Ornithologia and adopted by Linnaeus as a genus name in the Systema naturae . globulosa indicates the possession of one or more prominent round surface features (from Latin globus "a globe"); it the present case it obviously refers to the adult male's prominent bill knob. This bird, with its remarkable features, was subsequently described as new by several scientists who were unawares of von Spix' description. It has no recognized subspecies.  [2]

According to cladistic analysis of multisequence mtDNA data, the wattled curassow is the most ancient lineage of the southern Crax curassows. Its origins date back some 6–5.5 mya ago (Messinian, Late Miocene) when its ancestors became isolated in the western Amazon rainforest. Although a close relationship to the red-billed curassow (C. blumenbachii) has been proposed, the wattled curassow seems to be a quite basal lineage without particularly close relatives. The similarity with the red-billed curassow seems to be mostly due to the fact that these are the most ancient species of the southern lineage, retaining more plesiomorphies. Though externally still fairly alike, the two species have vastly different calls and probably evolved, at about the same time, at opposite ends of the original southern Crax curassow's range. [4]

From captivity, hybrids with the blue-billed curassow (Crax alberti) are known. That species is one of the northern group of Crax. The yellow-knobbed curassows (C. daubentoni) is probably closest to it, but regardless, they are quite distinct from the wattled curassow. But viable (though not dependably fertile) hybrids are suspected to be possible between any two species of Cracidae. The color and shape of the bill ornaments of male Crax hybrids are not easily predicted, but character displacement would demand the eastern (if any) subspecies of the black curassow (C. a. alector) to have a red ornamentation, as no red-ornamented congeners occur in or near its range. The red cere of the western black curassow may well be due to occasional hybrid introgression of C. globulosa alleles, as it is unlikely that the Solimões is entirely impassable to these birds. [3]

Distribution

It has been found from the western and southwestern Amazon Basin of Brazil west to the Andes foothills of southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador and Peru, and northern Bolivia. Its area of occurrence is essentially delimited by the Caquetá-Japurá, Solimões, Amazon and Madeira Rivers, and the 300 meter contour line towards the Andes. But its precise distribution is very little-known; most populations were observed by people travelling along the rivers in its range. [4]

Most of the northern limit of its range runs along the middle Amazon River, or Solimões. In northern Peru where the Marañón River becomes the Amazon River (Solimões for Brazilians), close to Nauta, the range continues upstream towards eastern Amazonian Ecuador along the Caquetá-Japurá; it has been recorded from the Yavarí and middle Napo Rivers. It is probably not found anymore in Ecuador proper, and apart from two small populations— Isla Mocagua in the Amazon River and near the Caquetá—it is also absent from Colombia. [5]

To the eastern limit of its range, the Madeira River, upstream in Bolivia, the wattled curassow occurs patchily across most of northern Bolivia in a 700 km region surrounding the confluences to the Madeira's tributaries, four major rivers of northern Bolivia. In Brazil, the bird is only found in the wild in Amazonas state (it used to occur in Rondônia also), namely near the Juruá, the Javary, the Japurá, and at its northeasternmost limit around the confluence regions along the Solimões, Madeira, Rio Negro, and the Purus Rivers. [4]

Ecology

The habitat preference of the wattled curassow is not well studied either. Some have found it in terra firme rainforest on higher ground, but it probably occurs there in any numbers only in the wet season when the lowlands are flooded. Most sightings were in gallery forest along rivers and streams (particularly blackwater), seasonally flooded várzea forest, around lakes, and on river islands. Várzea seems to be key habitat for this species, at least seasonally. Mated pairs probably defend a territory as other curassows do, and many seem to be entirely sedentary for their whole life. Young birds would thus have to disperse a bit after growing up, if their parents are still alive. But even then they probably stay in the same general area, moving perhaps a few km/miles from their place of birth at most. [6]

As almost all Galliformes do, it eats mostly plant matter, supplemented by some small (typically invertebrate) animals—including at least on occasion crustaceans and fish –, but hardly any actual data exists. When foraging, it has been observed to rummage around on the ground less often than other Crax curassows, indicating that it may favor different food items (e.g. fresh fruit instead of dropped seeds) than its closest relatives. [7]

The breeding season in the wild is unknown; reproductive activity has been noted between June and August but few records exist and as in many rainforest birds there might not be well-marked breeding and non-breeding seasons. Males court the females by strutting around them and giving booming calls. These birds copulate on the ground, and as in many other Galloanseres and in paleognaths the males have a kind of penis. Couples presumably form for years, often essentially for life, as in other curassows; a change of partners may occur occasionally, and were males are frequently hunted (their loud calls make them easy to stalk) survivors may pair up with more than one female. [7]

The nest is a crude flat cup of twigs and leaves, small compared to the bird, built at off the ground in vegetation. As in all curassows, the clutch is generally two white eggs, which in this species probably measure about 3.5 by 2.5 in (89 by 64 mm); time to hatching is almost certainly around 30 days. Both parents tend for the precocial young, which might become independent at about one year of age or maybe earlier. However, it may also be that few birds less than two years of age are sexually mature, suggesting that the grown-up immatures could just as well spend another year or so living with or nearby their parents. A captive bird lived to an age of more than 20 years. [3]

Status

Wattled curassow female at the National Aviary Crax globulosa at the National Aviary 1.jpg
Wattled curassow female at the National Aviary

The wattled curassow is rarely found in the wild anymore, due to unsustainable hunting and habitat destruction. While its status has rarely been well studied, the number of old and modern records strongly indicates that it is much rarer nowadays than it was in the late 19th century. The species seems to have disappeared from Ecuador in the 1980s, while populations persist in remote areas of the other countries from which it is known. It is nowhere numerous, and the only known region where it can be encountered reasonably often might be along the Juruá River in Brazil, in particular in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve; it is also present in some numbers near San Marcos in Beni Department, Bolivia. [8] It might occur in unexplored locations; its presence in Colombia for example was only proven around 1950 when a bird was shot in Caquetá Department, at Tres Troncos on the Caquetá River (from where the species has since disappeared). But any undiscovered populations are unlikely to be large—and even though they might remain unknown to science as soon as hunting with firearms starts in a region the wattled curassow is liable to get shot more often than it reproduces. [9]

There may be somewhat more than 10,000 adult C. globulosa left in the world, but if few other populations exist apart from those known, it might number less than 5,000 individuals old and young altogether. A captive stock exists and by curassow standards is even reasonably plentiful. The species occasionally breeds in captivity, but this is entirely insufficient to counteract the decline in the wild—in particular as it is receives little legal protection and is not known from any protected area other than the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (a population from the Apaporis River near Chiribiquete National Park is apparently gone). [6]

The IUCN used to classify the wattled curassow as a Vulnerable species under criteria A2bcd+3bcd+4bcd; C2a(i). This means that its numbers have declined and continue to decline by about one-third every decade, mainly due to hunting, with habitat destruction as another major threat, and that most likely between 2,500 and 10,000 adults exist, but not more than 1,000 in any one subpopulation. [10] In 2010, this classification was uplifted to Endangered. [1]

Related Research Articles

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

The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches southernmost parts of Texas in the United States. Two species, the Trinidad piping guan and the rufous-vented chachalaca occur on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trinidad piping guan</span> Species of bird

The Trinidad piping guan locally known as the pawi, is a bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae, endemic to the island of Trinidad. It is a large bird, somewhat resembling a turkey in appearance, and research has shown that its nearest living relative is the blue-throated piping guan from South America. It is a mainly arboreal species feeding mostly on fruit, but also on flowers and leaves. At one time abundant, it has declined in numbers and been extirpated from much of its natural range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated the bird as "critically endangered".

<i>Crax</i> Genus of birds

Crax is a genus of curassows in the order Galliformes, a clade of large, heavy-bodied, ground-feeding birds. They are known from tropical South America with one species, the great curassow, ranging northwards through Central America as far as Mexico. The curassows in this genus are noted for their sexual dimorphism; males are more boldly coloured than females and have facial ornamentation such as knobs and wattles. They are also characterised by curly crests and contrastingly-coloured crissa. Crax curassows probably originated as a distinct lineage during the Late Miocene. During the Messinian, the ancestral Crax split into two lineages separated by the Colombian Andes and the Cordillera de Mérida which uplifted at that time. The northern lineage radiated into the great, blue-billed, and yellow-knobbed curassows, while the four southern species evolved as they became separated by the uplifting of various mountain ranges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piping guan</span> Genus of birds

The piping guans are a bird genus, Pipile, in the family Cracidae. A recent study, evaluating mtDNA, osteology and biogeography data concluding that the wattled guan belongs in the same genus as these and is a hypermelanistic piping guan. Thus, Pipile became a junior synonym of Aburria, though this conclusion was not accepted by the South American Checklist Committee, or evaluated by the IOC, so the classification remains in Pipile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great curassow</span> Species of bird

The great curassow is a large, pheasant-like bird from the Neotropical rainforests, its range extending from eastern Mexico, through Central America to western Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. Male birds are black with curly crests and yellow beaks; females come in three colour morphs, barred, rufous and black. These birds form small groups, foraging mainly on the ground for fruits and arthropods, and the occasional small vertebrate, but they roost and nest in trees. This species is monogamous, the male usually building the rather small nest of leaves in which two eggs are laid. This species is threatened by loss of habitat and hunting, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as "vulnerable".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red-billed curassow</span> Species of bird

The red-billed curassow or red-knobbed curassow is an endangered species of cracid that is endemic to lowland Atlantic Forest in the states of Espírito Santo, Bahia and Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Its population is decreasing due to hunting and deforestation, and it has possibly been extirpated from Minas Gerais. It is currently being reintroduced to Rio de Janeiro by means of individuals bred in captivity. As suggested by its common name, the male has a largely red bill, but this is lacking in the female.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue-billed curassow</span> Species of bird

The blue-billed curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is endemic to Colombia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black curassow</span> Species of bird

The black curassow, also known as the smooth-billed curassow and the crested curassow, is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in humid forests in northern South America in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas including Suriname, and far northern Brazil, and is introduced to Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Lesser Antilles. It is the only Crax curassow where the male and female cannot be separated by plumage, as both are essentially black with a white crissum, and have a yellow or orange-red cere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow-knobbed curassow</span> Species of bird

The yellow-knobbed curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bare-faced curassow</span> Species of bird

The bare-faced curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, curassows, etc. It is found in Brazil, Paraguay, and eastern Bolivia, and extreme northeast Argentina, in the cerrado, pantanal, and the southeastern region of the Amazon basin. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crestless curassow</span> Species of bird

The crestless curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, and Venezuela.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Razor-billed curassow</span> Species of bird

The razor-billed curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horned curassow</span> Species of bird

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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sira curassow</span> Species of bird

The Sira curassow is a species of bird in the family Cracidae. It is found in the Cerros del Sira in central Peru. Its natural habitat is tropical, moist, montane cloud forest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purus várzea</span> Ecoregion in the Amazon biome

The Purus várzea (NT0156) is an ecoregion of seasonally flooded várzea forest in the central Amazon basin. It is part of the Amazon biome. The ecoregion is home to a vegetation adapted to floods of up to 12 metres (39 ft) that may last for eight months. There is a great variety of fish and birds, but relatively fewer mammals. Ground-dwelling mammals must migrate to higher ground during the flood season. Threats include logging, cattle farming, over-fishing and mercury pollution from gold mining.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purus–Madeira moist forests</span> Ecoregion in the Amazon biome

The Purus-Madeira moist forests (NT0157) is an ecoregion in the central Amazon basin. It is part of the Amazon biome. The ecoregion covers a stretch of flat and relatively infertile land between the Purus and Madeira rivers, extending to the Solimões River in the north. It is isolated from other regions by the seasonally flooded várzea forest along these rivers, and has a high degree of endemism among its flora and fauna. The natural environment is relatively intact. The BR-319 highway was built along the length of the ecoregion in the early 1970s, but rapidly deteriorated and is now closed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solimões–Japurá moist forests</span> Ecoregion in the Amazon biome

The Solimões-Japurá moist forests (NT0163) is an ecoregion in northwest Brazil and eastern Peru and Colombia in the Amazon biome. It has a hot climate with high rainfall throughout the year, and holds one of the most diverse collections of fauna and flora in the world. The ecoregion is relatively intact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juruá–Purus moist forests</span> Ecoregion in the Amazon biome

The Juruá–Purus moist forests (NT0133) is an ecoregion in northwest Brazil in the Amazon biome. The terrain is very flat and soils are poor. The rivers flood annually. There are no roads in the region, and the dense rainforest is relatively intact, although plans to extend the Trans-Amazonian Highway through the region would presumably cause widespread damage to the habitat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Napo moist forests</span>

The Napo moist forests (NT0142) is an ecoregion in the western Amazon rainforest of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yungas guan</span> Species of bird

The Yungas guan is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in the Andean foothills of Argentina and Bolivia.

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2016). "Crax globulosa". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016: e.T22678537A92777596. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22678537A92777596.en . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 del Hoyo (1994a)
  3. 1 2 3 del Hoyo (1994a,b)
  4. 1 2 3 del Hoyo (1994a), Pereira & Baker (2004)
  5. ↑ del Hoyo (1994a), Pereira & Baker (2004), Alarcón-Nieto & Palacios (2005)
  6. 1 2 del Hoyo (1994a), BLI (2008)
  7. 1 2 del Hoyo (1994a,b), BLI (2008)
  8. ↑ Hill, Davina L.; Arañibar-Rojas, Hugo; MacLeod, Ross (2008-12-01). "Wattled Curassows in Bolivia: abundance, habitat use, and conservation status". Journal of Field Ornithology. 79 (4): 345–351. doi:10.1111/j.1557-9263.2008.00193.x. ISSN   1557-9263.
  9. ↑ Blake (1955), del Hoyo (1994a), BLI (2008)
  10. ↑ BLI (2008)
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