Wattled curassow

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Wattled curassow
Female at the
buff crissum (the area around the cloaca
)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Cracidae
Genus: Crax
Species:
C. globulosa
Binomial name
Crax globulosa
Spix, 1825
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

The wattled curassow is about 82–89 cm (32–35 in) long, and weighs around 2,500 g (88 oz). It is a large

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

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

allopatric however, with only C. a. erythrognatha occurring adjacent to the range of C. globulosa.[3]

  • Wattled curassow female Note dark bill and orange cere
    Wattled curassow female
    Note dark bill and orange
    cere
  • A young male wattled curassow.
    A young male wattled curassow.
  • Male great curassow (C. rubra)
    Male great curassow (C. rubra)
  • Eastern black curassow (C. a. alector) Note light bill. Cere is orange-red in western subspecies.
    Eastern black curassow (C. a. alector)
    Note light bill. Cere is orange-red in western subspecies.
  • Adult male yellow-knobbed curassow (C. daubentoni)
    Adult male yellow-knobbed curassow (C. daubentoni)
  • Adult male red-billed curassow (C. blumenbachii) Note crimson cere and lack of pronounced bill knob
    Adult male red-billed curassow (C. blumenbachii)
    Note crimson cere and lack of pronounced bill knob

Taxonomy and systematics

Wattled curassow by J. Smit.

The wattled curassow is one of the Crax species described in 1825 by

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

The wattled curassow is rarely found in the wild anymore, due to unsustainable

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

subpopulation.[10] In 2010, this classification was uplifted to Endangered.[1]

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22678537A92777596.en
    . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ a b c del Hoyo (1994a)
  3. ^ a b c del Hoyo (1994a,b)
  4. ^ a b c del Hoyo (1994a), Pereira & Baker (2004)
  5. ^ del Hoyo (1994a), Pereira & Baker (2004), Alarcón-Nieto & Palacios (2005)
  6. ^ a b del Hoyo (1994a), BLI (2008)
  7. ^ a b del Hoyo (1994a,b), BLI (2008)
  8. ISSN 1557-9263
    .
  9. ^ Blake (1955), del Hoyo (1994a), BLI (2008)
  10. ^ BLI (2008)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crax globulosa.
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