Slaty-breasted tinamou facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Slaty-breasted tinamou |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Crypturellus
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| Species: |
boucardi
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| Subspecies | |
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C. b. boucardi (Sclater, 1859) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Tinamus boucardi |
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The slaty-breasted tinamou or Boucard's tinamou (Crypturellus boucardi) is a special type of bird. It lives in the warm, wet forests of Mexico and Central America.
Contents
About the Slaty-breasted Tinamou
All tinamous belong to the bird family called Tinamidae. They are also part of a larger group of birds known as ratites. Other ratites include ostriches and emus, which cannot fly. Tinamous are different because they can fly, even if they aren't super strong flyers. Scientists believe tinamous are the closest living relatives to ancient flying birds that ratites evolved from.
The slaty-breasted tinamou has two main types, called subspecies:
- C. b. boucardi: This type lives in the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coast. You can find it in southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and northwestern Honduras. This is the "nominate subspecies," meaning it's the original one that was first described.
- C. b. costaricensis: This type lives on the Caribbean side of Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica.
A scientist named Philip Sclater first identified the slaty-breasted tinamou in 1859. He studied a bird from Oaxaca, Mexico.
What's in a Name?
The scientific name Crypturellus boucardi has a cool meaning!
- Crypturellus comes from three Greek words: kruptos (meaning "covered" or "hidden"), oura (meaning "the tail"), and ellus (meaning "small"). So, Crypturellus means "small covered tail."
- boucardi is a Latin form of the name Boucard. It honors a person named Adolphe Boucard.
Where They Live
Their Home Range
This bird likes warm, wet forests in tropical and subtropical areas. It can live in places up to 1,800 meters (about 5,900 feet) high. You can find it along the Gulf of Mexico coast, from southern Mexico (like southern Veracruz and northern Oaxaca) all the way south to northern Costa Rica. This includes countries like Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
Preferred Habitat
Slaty-breasted tinamous prefer thick evergreen forests with lots of plants growing close to the ground. But they can also live in forests with less undergrowth, forests that are growing back after being cut down, and even on replanted farms. They especially like areas that are moist and damp.
Appearance
The slaty-breasted tinamou is about 27 centimeters (10.6 inches) long. It weighs around 470 grams (about 1 pound).
Here's what it looks like:
- Its back and head are dark, from black to a reddish-brown color.
- Its wings are brown.
- Its chest is a slaty grey color.
- Its throat is white.
- The rest of its underside is grey-brown, with darker stripes on its sides and under its tail.
- Female tinamous have stripes on their wings.
- Its legs are pink to bright red.
- Its beak is dark on top and yellow underneath.
Behavior and Life Cycle
This tinamou is quite shy and hard to spot on the dark forest floor.
Calls and Sounds
Its call has three notes and sounds lower than other tinamous. It can call for a very long time, sometimes up to five hours! Sometimes, this tinamou will even have babies with another type of tinamou called the thicket tinamou.
What They Eat
Like other tinamous, it mostly eats fruit and seeds. It also enjoys some invertebrates, especially ants and termites.
Reproduction
When it's time to have babies, the male slaty-breasted tinamou attracts 2 to 4 females. Each female lays her eggs in a nest that the male builds. The nest is usually on the ground, hidden in thick plants, or between the raised roots of a tree. The male then sits on the eggs to keep them warm (this is called incubating). He also takes care of the young birds once they hatch. The females will often mate with more than one male.
Conservation Status
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has listed the slaty-breasted tinamou as "vulnerable." This means it could be at risk in the future. It lives across a large area, about 330,000 square kilometers (127,414 square miles). People do hunt this bird for food, but its population numbers seem to be staying steady for now.
