Black Curassow
The Black Curassow (Crax alector), also known as the Smooth-billed Curassow, and the Crested Curassow, is a species of bird in the Cracidae family, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in humid forests in northern South America in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and far northern Brazil. 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 (eastern part of its range) or orange-red (western part of its range) cere.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
There are two recognized subspecies:
- C. a. alector (Linnaeus, 1766) - eastern Colombia and Venezuela south of the Orinoco River
- C. a. erythrognatha (PL Sclater and Salvin, 1877) - extreme eastern Venezuela to the Guianas and Brazil north of the Amazon.
