#nyctibiiformes

Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus), mother and chick, family Nyctibiidae, order Nyctibiiformes, Ecuador

Potoos used to be in the same order as nightjars, but are now placed in their own order.

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next strisorean bird order is the Nyctibiiformes, commonly called “potoos”. This order consists of one family, Nyctibiidae, containing 7 species within 2 genera.

Potoos are known for their large, sometimes bright yellow eyes, their broad mouths, and short bills. As members of the clade Strisores, they have a body resembling nightjars, though they are larger. They have proportionally large heads for their body size and long wings and tails. Like nightjars, they are nocturnal insectivores which spend their day sleeping perched on tree stumps camouflaged to look like part of the stump. Unlike nightjars, they lack rictal bristles around their mouth. Potoos hunt from a perch, watching for insects and then darting after them, then returning to their perch. They mainly eat flying beetles, but will also eat moths, grasshoppers, and termites, and even small birds. They live only within Central and South America.

Potoos lay a single spotted egg directly on top of a stump. They are monogamous and both parents incubate the egg and raise their chick. One parent, often the male, incubates the egg during the day, while the duties are shared during the night. The chick hatches about one month after laying and the nestling phase is two months. The plumage of nestling potoos is white and once they are too large to hide under their parents they adopt the same frozen, camouflaged position as their parents, resembling clumps of fungus.

Strisores have a well-represented fossil record, with fossils of most major strisorean lineages known from the Paleogene. Strisores evolved in the Eocene, with the two main extant lineages of separating about 60–55 million years ago. At around 40 mya, the common ancestors of Caprimulgidae and Nyctibiidae diverged from those of the oilbird and frogmouths.

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Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus)

Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus)

Andean Potoo (Nyctibius maculosus), family Nyctibiidae, order Nyctibiiformes, Peru

Potoos used to be in the same order as nightjars, but are now placed in their own order.