#catingueira

🐦“Phoenixissaurus”

🇧🇷Jacu-cigano/Cigana/Catingueira

🇬🇧Hoatzin

📖(Opisthocomus hoazin)

You know how people say birds are basically modern-day dinosaurs? Well this is particularly true when it comes to this oddly weird (and smelly) South-American bird. The Hoatzin is this awesome phoenix-like dinosauric bird that is born with CLAWS! Yes, you read it right: the younglings are born with claws on their wings like a freaking pterodactyl, so that they can hop on branches (they fall off the nest quite a lot). The oddness does not stop there; in fact they are so unique, that after a recent genetic study, they have been placed in a separate order altogether! If you thought it was over, they come and amaze you all again: this bird does not digest food like its fellow avians. Instead, they digest their beloved leaves and sprouts for a looooong time (45h or so) in a symbiotic process with bacteria on their crop. Like a cow. This crop is 50 times bigger than its stomach. I’m not joking. That’s actually why they’re also called “stinky” (Catingueira) in Portuguese, for their poop can smell real bad. They tend to be clumsy in flight, but fairly good swimmers. The Hoatzin live in small groups of roughly 50 individuals and apparently the community does co-parenting? Omg, it really does take a village. The hatch is usually composed of 2 - 5 eggs and the baby dinos need full-time care. In addition to being clumsy, they are quite noisy, which makes them quite easy to spot along the Amazonian rivers. In summary: they are birds that have claws like dinosaurs, eat like cows, croak like frogs and swim like fish. If birds were pokémon, the Hoatzin would be the final master form.

Sources:

https://portalamazonia.com/amazonia/dia-das-aves-entenda-a-importancia-a-cigana-da-amazonia/

https://youtu.be/yzSIP5NkY8I?si=NPzPOGS-CGxZrzzC

https://www.wikiaves.com.br/wiki/cigana

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoatzin