Urutau day sleeper
| Urutau day sleeper | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Urutau day sleeper ( Nyctibius griseus ) |
||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Nyctibius griseus | ||||||||||
| ( Gmelin , 1789) |
The Urutau day dormouse ( Nyctibius griseus ) is a nocturnal bird that occurs in Central and South America from tropical Mexico to Costa Rica to northern Argentina and northern Uruguay . He can also be found on the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Hispaniola . As a habitat, it prefers light forests, forest edges and tree-lined, savanna-like terrain below 1200 m.
features
When fully grown, Urutau day sleepers reach a height of 38 cm and then weigh 230 g. It is a large, vigorous bird with gray-brown speckled plumage. It can open its short beak into a huge gullet. There are bristles at the base of the beak. His call is a POO - O - OU - OU , deep, clear, sad-sounding tones that decrease in both height and volume. This reputation earned him the name "Potoo" in English, and because of its large mouth and its ringing reputation on bright moonlit nights, the locals gave it the name "Urutau", which could be translated as "ghost mouth".
behavior
The breeding behavior of the Urutau day sleepers is unusual. Between December and March the swallows incubate a single, purple-spotted, white egg. During the day the male bird sits absolutely motionless on the egg with his eyes closed. His iris is bright orange and would immediately reveal his perfect camouflage. However, he observes the area carefully through two different sized slits that run perpendicular to the eyelids. When it gets dark, the female hatches the egg. It keeps your eyes open - the only way to find the breeding site with the help of a lamp. The male bird hunts for large flying insects at night. The owl-like bird (it just doesn't have a round head like this one) has camouflage that is almost perfectly adapted to the ground. Whether it is sitting on a fork of a branch at a height of three to 18 m or on a fence post at a height of two m without any indentation for the egg, it cannot be made out during incubation. The head with the short beak is directed vertically upwards. It trusts its camouflage so much that it does not escape even when it comes within a few centimeters. The bird then shudders with stress. Urutau day sleepers are little researched and are considered rare everywhere, although it cannot be ruled out that they are often overlooked due to their camouflage. Due to their large distribution area, however, they are listed on the IUCN Red List as not endangered ( least concern ).
Systematics
The German natural scientist Johann Friedrich Gmelin originally described the Urutau day sleeper as Caprimulgus griseus in 1789 and initially placed it among the goat milkers . Currently, in addition to the nominate form N. g. griseus nor the subspecies N. g. panamensis is considered valid. This tends to be somewhat larger and darker in color than N. g. griseus , although some researchers question its validity and N. g. view panamensis as a clinical variation only . In principle , the subspecies N.g. , originally postulated by Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1817, is no longer considered valid . cornutus . The morphologically very similar Mexican day sleeper ( N. jamaicensis ) was originally described as a further subspecies of the Urutau day sleeper, but was later given the status of a separate species based on considerable differences in the vocalizations. It is now known through phylogenetic studies that the two are Species is sister taxa .
- N.g. griseus ( Gmelin , 1789); South America east of the Andes
- N.g. panamensis Ridgway , 1912; Nicaragua , Costa Rica, Panama , South America west of the Andes
Web links
- Nyctibius griseus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2015 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved on February 2, 2016th
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Nyctibius griseus in the Internet Bird Collection
- Many photos
- photos
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Voudouris: Common Potoo Nyctibius griseus - Systematics. In: cornell.edu. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2015, accessed November 27, 2019 .