Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Splendid Fairy-wrens: demonstrating the importance of longevity
- 2 Green Woodhoopoes: life history traits and sociality
- 3 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers: a ‘primitive’ cooperative breeder
- 4 Arabian Babblers: the quest for social status in a cooperative breeder
- 5 Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird
- 6 Campylorhynchus wrens: the ecology of delayed dispersal and cooperation in the Venezuelan savanna
- 7 Pinyon Jays: making the best of a bad situation by helping
- 8 Florida Scrub Jays: a synopsis after 18 years of study
- 9 Mexican Jays: uncooperative breeding
- 10 Galápagos mockingbirds: territorial cooperative breeding in a climatically variable environment
- 11 Groove-billed Anis: joint-nesting in a tropical cuckoo
- 12 Galápagos and Harris' Hawks: divergent causes of sociality in two raptors
- 13 Pukeko: different approaches and some different answers
- 14 Acorn Woodpeckers: group-living and food storage under contrasting ecological conditions
- 15 Dunnocks: cooperation and conflict among males and females in a variable mating system
- 16 White-fronted Bee-eaters: helping in a colonially nesting species
- 17 Pied Kingfishers: ecological causes and reproductive consequences of cooperative breeding
- 18 Noisy Miners: variations on the theme of communality
- Summary
- Index
5 - Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Splendid Fairy-wrens: demonstrating the importance of longevity
- 2 Green Woodhoopoes: life history traits and sociality
- 3 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers: a ‘primitive’ cooperative breeder
- 4 Arabian Babblers: the quest for social status in a cooperative breeder
- 5 Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird
- 6 Campylorhynchus wrens: the ecology of delayed dispersal and cooperation in the Venezuelan savanna
- 7 Pinyon Jays: making the best of a bad situation by helping
- 8 Florida Scrub Jays: a synopsis after 18 years of study
- 9 Mexican Jays: uncooperative breeding
- 10 Galápagos mockingbirds: territorial cooperative breeding in a climatically variable environment
- 11 Groove-billed Anis: joint-nesting in a tropical cuckoo
- 12 Galápagos and Harris' Hawks: divergent causes of sociality in two raptors
- 13 Pukeko: different approaches and some different answers
- 14 Acorn Woodpeckers: group-living and food storage under contrasting ecological conditions
- 15 Dunnocks: cooperation and conflict among males and females in a variable mating system
- 16 White-fronted Bee-eaters: helping in a colonially nesting species
- 17 Pied Kingfishers: ecological causes and reproductive consequences of cooperative breeding
- 18 Noisy Miners: variations on the theme of communality
- Summary
- Index
Summary
Study species
The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is a relatively large bird (700–900 g, 70 cm overall length) which inhabits riparian forests and swamps in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins (Figure 5.1). As a folivorous, semi-ruminant, cooperatively breeding bird, the Hoatzin is among the most unusual of avian species. The swimming and climbing abilities and functional wing claws of the young are well known among ornithologists (e.g. Beebe 1909). The latter have remained the most recognized ‘primitive’ feature of the bird, prompting early speculation on the reptilian affinities of Opisthocomus. One author (Penard 1908, p. 309) went so far as to suggest that the Hoatzin ‘formed the transition between the birds and the creeping animals’, though numerous avian groups possess wing claws at some stage of development (Heilmann 1927). In no other group are these claws as well developed as in young Hoatzins, nor are they used for climbing or predator escape in other species.
The earliest taxonomic references to the Hoatzin are by Hernandez (1651), who presented an accurate anatomical description but confused its habitats with those of other species, erroneously stating that:
The bird subsists upon snakes. It has a powerful voice which resembles a howling or wailing sound. It is heard in the autumn and held inauspicious by the natives. The bones of this bird relieve the pain of wounds in any part of the human body; the odor of the plumage restores hope to those who, from any disease, are steadily wasting away.[…]
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- Chapter
- Information
- Cooperative Breeding in BirdsLong Term Studies of Ecology and Behaviour, pp. 131 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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