Wattled Curassow
Encyclopedia
The Wattled Curassow is a threatened member of the family
Cracidae
, the curassow
s, guan
s, and chachalaca
s. It is found in remote rainforest
s in the western Amazon Basin
in South America
.
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 (area between legs and tail). The irides ar 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 apical
ly at least halfway under this knob and below the mandible
base forms a small fleshy wattle
.
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.
The hatchlings are covered in brown down above and whitish down below.
(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 Curassow
s (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.
; 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
.
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 western Amazonia. 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.
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 Curassow
s (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 allele
s, as it is unlikely that the Solimões is entirely impassable to these birds.
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 River
s, 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.
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 Solimões, the range continues upstream towards eastern Amazonian Ecuador along the Caquetá-Japurá; it has been recorded from the Yavarí and middle Napo River
s. 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.
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.
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.
As almost all Galliformes
do, it eats mostly plant matter, supplemented by some small (typically invertebrate
) animals—including at least on occasion crustacean
s 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) that its closest relatives.
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.
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 (90 by 65 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 the another year or so living with or nearby their parents. A captive bird lived to an age of more than 20 years.
and habitat destruction
. While its status has never been very 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. 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.
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).
The IUCN classifies 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. If no further populations are discovered, the species is likely to be uplisted to Endangered status in the near future.
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Cracidae
Cracidae
The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
, the curassow
Curassow
Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America; a single species of Crax ranges north to Mexico...
s, guan
Guan
Guan may refer to either of two Chinese family names . The two names are as follows:-Guan :...
s, and chachalaca
Chachalaca
Chachalacas are mainly brown birds from the genus Ortalis. These cracids are found in wooded habitats in far southern United States , Mexico, and Central and South America. They are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly common even near humans, as their relatively small size makes them...
s. It is found in remote rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
s in the western Amazon Basin
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
.
Description
The Wattled Curassow is about 82–89 cm (32–35 in) long, and weighs around 2,500 g (88 oz). It is a large curassowCurassow
Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America; a single species of Crax ranges north to Mexico...
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
Plumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
all over except for the white crissum (area between legs and tail). The irides ar dark brown; legs, feet and bill are blackish. It has conspicuous crimson
Crimson
Crimson is a strong, bright, deep red color. It is originally the color of the dye produced from a scale insect, Kermes vermilio, but the name is now also used as a generic term for those slightly bluish-red colors that are between red and rose; besides crimson itself, these colors include...
bill ornaments—a round red knob with bony core adorns the maxilla
Maxilla
The maxilla is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper jaw. This is similar to the mandible , which is also a fusion of two halves at the mental symphysis. Sometimes The maxilla (plural: maxillae) is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper...
base, while the cere
Cère
The Cère is a long river in south-western France, left tributary of the Dordogne River. Its source is in the south-western Massif Central, near the mountain Plomb du Cantal...
extends apical
Apical
Apical, from the Latin apex meaning to be at the apex or tip, may refer to:*Apical , an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure...
ly at least halfway under this knob and below the mandible
Mandible
The mandible pronunciation or inferior maxillary bone forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place...
base forms a small fleshy wattle
Wattle (anatomy)
A wattle is a fleshy dewlap or caruncle hanging from various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds, goats and other animals. In some birds the caruncle is erectile tissue.The wattle is frequently an organ of sexual dimorphism...
.
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.
The hatchlings are covered in brown down above and whitish down below.
Similar species
Adults look very much like those of he Red-billed CurassowRed-billed Curassow
The Red-knobbed Curassow or Red-billed Curassow, Crax blumenbachii, 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...
(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
Black Curassow
The Black Curassow , 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...
subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
C. alector erythrognatha, found north of the Solimões
Solimões
Solimões is the name often given to early stretches of the Amazon River from the border of Brazil and Peru to its confluence with the Rio Negro.Further upstream from the border, the name of the river seems to depend on the speaker...
, 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 Curassow
Yellow-knobbed Curassow
The Yellow-knobbed Curassow is a large species of bird found in forest and woodland in Colombia and Venezuela. It feeds mainly on the ground, but flies up into trees if threatened. Its most striking features are its crest, made of feathers that curl forward, and the fleshy yellow knob at the base...
s (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.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Wattled Curassow is one of the Crax species described in 1825 by Johann Baptist von SpixJohann Baptist von Spix
Dr. Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix was a German naturalist.Spix was born in Höchstadt, Middle Franconia, as the seventh of eleven children. His boyhood home is the site of the Spix Museum , opened to the public in 2004...
; the type locality is the Solimões
Solimões
Solimões is the name often given to early stretches of the Amazon River from the border of Brazil and Peru to its confluence with the Rio Negro.Further upstream from the border, the name of the river seems to depend on the speaker...
(middle Amazon River
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
) region. Its scientific name Crax globulosa can be translated as "knobbed curassow". Crax is a term for curassows introduced by Mathurin Jacques Brisson
Mathurin Jacques Brisson
Mathurin Jacques Brisson was a French zoologist and natural philosopher.Brisson was born at Fontenay-le-Comte. The earlier part of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history, his published works in this department including Le Règne animal and Ornithologie...
in his 1760s Ornithologia and adopted by Linnaeus as a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
name in the Systema naturae
Systema Naturae
The book was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus. The first edition was published in 1735...
. 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
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
.
According to cladistic analysis of multisequence
DNA sequence
The sequence or primary structure of a nucleic acid is the composition of atoms that make up the nucleic acid and the chemical bonds that bond those atoms. Because nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are unbranched polymers, this specification is equivalent to specifying the sequence of...
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
Messinian
The Messinian is in the geologic timescale the last age or uppermost stage of the Miocene. It spans the time between 7.246 ± 0.005 Ma and 5.332 ± 0.005 Ma...
, Late Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
) when its ancestors became isolated in western Amazonia. Although a close relationship to the Red-billed Curassow
Red-billed Curassow
The Red-knobbed Curassow or Red-billed Curassow, Crax blumenbachii, 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...
(C. blumenbachii) has been proposed, the Wattled Curassow seems to be a quite basal
Basal (phylogenetics)
In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group forms an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...
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.
From captivity, hybrids with the Blue-billed Curassow
Blue-billed Curassow
The Blue-knobbed Curassow or Blue-billed Curassow is a species of bird in the Cracidae family, which includes the chachalacas, guans, and curassows....
(Crax alberti) are known. That species is one of the northern group of Crax. The Yellow-knobbed Curassow
Yellow-knobbed Curassow
The Yellow-knobbed Curassow is a large species of bird found in forest and woodland in Colombia and Venezuela. It feeds mainly on the ground, but flies up into trees if threatened. Its most striking features are its crest, made of feathers that curl forward, and the fleshy yellow knob at the base...
s (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
Cracidae
The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
. The color and shape of the bill ornaments of male Crax hybrids are not easily predicted, but character displacement
Character displacement
Character displacement refers to the phenomenon where differences among similar species whose distributions overlap geographically are accentuated in regions where the species co-occur but are minimized or lost where the species’ distributions do not overlap. This pattern results from evolutionary...
would demand the eastern (if any) subspecies of the Black Curassow
Black Curassow
The Black Curassow , 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...
(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 allele
Allele
An allele is one of two or more forms of a gene or a genetic locus . "Allel" is an abbreviation of allelomorph. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation...
s, as it is unlikely that the Solimões is entirely impassable to these birds.
Distribution
It has been found from the western and southwestern Amazon BasinAmazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
west to the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
foothills of southeastern Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, eastern Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, and northern Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
. Its area of occurrence is essentially delimited by the Caquetá-Japurá, Solimões
Solimões
Solimões is the name often given to early stretches of the Amazon River from the border of Brazil and Peru to its confluence with the Rio Negro.Further upstream from the border, the name of the river seems to depend on the speaker...
, Amazon
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
and Madeira River
Madeira River
The Madeira River is a major waterway in South America, approximately 3,250 km miles long The Madeira is the biggest tributary of the Amazon...
s, and the 300 meter contour line
Contour line
A contour line of a function of two variables is a curve along which the function has a constant value. In cartography, a contour line joins points of equal elevation above a given level, such as mean sea level...
towards the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
. But its precise distribution is very little-known; most populations were observed by people travelling along the rivers in its range.
Most of the northern limit of its range runs along the middle Amazon River, or Solimões. In northern Peru where the Marañón River
Marañón River
The Marañón River rises about 160 km to the northeast of Lima, Peru, flows through a deeply-eroded Andean valley in a northwesterly direction, along the eastern base of the Cordillera of the Andes, as far as 5 degrees 36' southern latitude; then it makes a great bend to the northeast, and...
becomes the Solimões, the range continues upstream towards eastern Amazonian Ecuador along the Caquetá-Japurá; it has been recorded from the Yavarí and middle Napo River
Napo River
The Napo is a tributary to the Amazon River that rises in Ecuador on the flanks of the volcanoes of Antisana, Sincholagua and Cotopaxi.The total length of 1075 km. Catchment area of 100,518 square kilometers...
s. 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.
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
Rondônia
Rondônia is a state in Brazil, located in the north-western part of the country. To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is the state of Amazonas, in the east is Mato Grosso, and in the south is Bolivia. Its capital is Porto Velho. The state was named after Candido Rondon...
also), namely near the Juruá
Jurua
The Juruá River is a southern affluent river of the Amazon River west of the Purus River, sharing with this the bottom of the immense inland Amazon depression, and having all the characteristics of the Purus as regards curvature, sluggishness and general features of the low, half-flooded forest...
, the Javary
Javary
The Javary River or Yavarí River is a 1,184 km tributary of the Amazon that forms the boundary between Brazil and Peru for more than 500 miles. It is navigable by canoe for 900 miles from above its mouth to its source in the Ucayali highlands, but only 260 were found suitable for steam...
, the Japurá, and at its northeasternmost limit around the confluence regions along the Solimões, Madeira, Rio Negro, and the Purus Rivers.
Ecology
The habitatHabitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
preference of the Wattled Curassow is not well studied either. Some have found it in terra firme rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
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
Gallery forest
Gallery forests are evergreen forests that form as corridors along rivers or wetlands and project into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands or deserts....
along rivers and streams (particularly blackwater
Blackwater river
A blackwater river is a river with a deep, slow-moving channel that flows through forested swamps and wetlands. As vegetation decays in the water, tannins are leached out, resulting in transparent, acidic water that is darkly stained, resembling tea or coffee. Most major blackwater rivers are in...
), seasonally flooded várzea
Várzea
-Portugal:* Várzea , a civil parish in the municipality of Amarante* Várzea , a civil parish in the municipality of Barcelos* Várzea , a civil parish in the municipality of Santarém-Other:...
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.
As almost all Galliformes
Galliformes
Galliformes are an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding domestic or game bird, containing turkey, grouse, chicken, New and Old World Quail, ptarmigan, partridge, pheasant, and the Cracidae. Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds or galliforms...
do, it eats mostly plant matter, supplemented by some small (typically invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
) animals—including at least on occasion crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s 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) that its closest relatives.
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
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
. 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.
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
Clutch (eggs)
A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest.In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators, , results in double-clutching...
is generally two white eggs, which in this species probably measure about 3.5 by 2.5 in (90 by 65 mm); time to hatching is almost certainly around 30 days. Both parents tend for the precocial
Precocial
In biology, the term precocial refers to species in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. The opposite developmental strategy is called "altricial," where the young are born or hatched helpless. Extremely precocial species may be called...
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 the another year or so living with or nearby their parents. A captive bird lived to an age of more than 20 years.
Status
The Wattled Curassow is rarely found in the wild anymore, due to unsustainable huntingHunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
and habitat destruction
Habitat destruction
Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...
. While its status has never been very 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
Beni Department
Beni, sometimes El Beni, is a northeastern department of Bolivia, in the lowlands region of the country. It is the second largest department in the country , covering 213,564 square kilometers , and it was created by supreme decree on November 18, 1842 during the administration of General José...
, Bolivia. 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.
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
Protected area
Protected areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognised natural, ecological and/or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country or the regulations of the international...
other than the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (a population from the Apaporis River near Chiribiquete National Park
Chiribiquete National Park
Chiribiquete National Park is the largest national park in Colombia. This protected area occupies of the Amazon Region of Colombia. The centerpiece of the protected area is the Chiribiquete Mountains, which are the western edge of the Guiana Shield....
is apparently gone).
The IUCN classifies the Wattled Curassow as a Vulnerable species
Vulnerable species
On 30 January 2010, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identified 9694 Vulnerable species, subspecies and varieties, stocks and sub-populations.-References:...
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. If no further populations are discovered, the species is likely to be uplisted to Endangered status in the near future.
External links
- BirdLife Species Factsheet.
- Wattled Curassow videos on the Internet Bird Collection
- Wattled Curassow photo gallery VIREO
- Photo-High Res; Article pbase.com
- Photo-Medium Res; Article armonia-bo.org—"Wattled Curassow Program"--(at the Rio Negro-Amazon confluence)
