Great Tinamou
The Great Tinamou Tinamus major, also called Mountain hen is a species of tinamou ground bird native to Central and South America. There are several subspecies, mostly differentiated by their coloration:
Description
Great Tinamou are approximately 44 cm (17 in) long, 1.1 kg (2.4 lb) in weight and size and shape of a small turkey. It ranges from light to dark olive-brown in color with a whitish throat and belly, flanks barred black, and undertail cinnamon. Crown and neck rufous, occipital crest and supercilium blackish. Its legs are blue-grey in color. All these features enable Great Tinamou to be well-camouflaged in the rainforest understory.
The Great Tinamou has a distinctive call, three short, tremulous, but powerful piping notes which can be heard in its rainforest habitat in the early evenings.
The Great Tinamou has a distinctive call, three short, tremulous, but powerful piping notes which can be heard in its rainforest habitat in the early evenings.
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| Great Tinamou |
image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cotinis
Taxonomy
All tinamous are from the family Tinamidae, and are the closest living relatives of the ratites. Unlike ratites, tinamous can fly, although in general, they are not strong fliers. All ratites evolved from prehistoric flying birds.
There are twelve sub-species
There are twelve sub-species
- T. m. percautus occurs in southeastern Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula), Belize, and Petén department in Guatemala.
- T. m. robustus occurs in the lowlands of southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Nicaragua.
- T. m. fuscipennis occurs in northern Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and western Panama.
- T. m. castaneiceps occurs in southwestern Costa Rica and western Panama.
- T. m. brunniventris occurs in south central Panama.
- T. m. saturatus occurs on Pacific slope of eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia.
- T. m. latifrons occurs in southwestern Colombia and western Ecuador.
- T. m. zuliensis occurs in northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.
- T. m. major occurs in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and northeastern Brazil.
- T. m. olivascens occurs in Brazilian Amazon.
- T. m. peruvianus occurs in southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Bolivia, western Brazil, and eastern Peru.
- T. m. serratus occurs in extreme southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil
Johann Friedrich Gmelin identified the Great Tinamou from a specimen located in Cayenne, French Guyana, in 1789.
Mating
Great Tinamou lives in subtropical and tropical forest such as rainforest, lowland evergreen forest, river-edge forest,swamp forest and cloud forest at altitudes from 300–1,500 m (1,000–4,900 ft). Unlike some other tinamous, the great tinamou isn't as affected by forest fragmentation. Its nest can be found at the base of a tree.
Conservation
This species is widespread throughout its large range (6,600,000 km² (2,500,000 sq mi)), thus the Great Tinamou is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They are hunted with no major effect on their population.
