The yellow-knobbed curassow (''Crax daubentoni'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Cracidae The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches southernmost parts of Texas in the Unite ...

, the

chachalaca Chachalacas are galliform birds from the genus ''Ortalis''. These birds are found in wooded habitats in the far southern United States (Texas), Mexico, and Central and South America. They are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly c ...

guan Guan may refer to: * Guan (surname), several similar Chinese surnames ** Guān, Chinese surname * Guan (state), ancient Chinese city-state * Guan (bird), any of a number of bird species of the family Cracidae, of South and Central America * Guan ( ...

s, and

curassow Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. They comprise the largest-bodied species of the cracid family. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America; a single species of ''Crax'' ranges north to Mexico. ...

s. It is found in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The yellow-knobbed curassow was formerly classified as a subspecies of

blue-billed curassow The blue-billed curassow (''Crax alberti'') is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, Guan (bird), guans, and curassows. It is endemic to Colombia. Taxonomy and systematics The blue-billed curassow is monotypic. However, i ...

(''Crax alberti''). It is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

. A few subspecies previously proposed for it were determined to be hybrids or aberrant individuals and so were not adopted.del Hoyo, J. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Yellow-knobbed Curassow (''Crax daubentoni''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.yekcur1.01 retrieved October 1, 2021

Description

The yellow-knobbed curassow is long. Males usually weigh between but one weighed only . A female weighed . The male is the only curassow with a knobbed yellow

cere The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, ...

and

wattle Wattle or wattles may refer to: Plants *''Acacia sensu lato'', polyphyletic genus of plants commonly known as wattle, especially in Australia and South Africa **''Acacia'', large genus of shrubs and trees, native to Australasia **Black wattle, c ...

. Males and females are mostly black with a white lower belly, vent area, and tips of the tail feathers. Females have a black cere and pale barring on the breast and lower belly.

Distribution and habitat

The yellow-knobbed curassow is found in northern Venezuela as far east as

Sucre Sucre () is the Capital city, capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the List of cities in Bolivia, 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . T ...

and

Monagas ) , anthem = '' Himno del Estado Monagas'' , image_map = Monagas in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_m ...

states and in immediately adjacent northeastern Colombia. It primarily inhabits

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

and tall scrub in the ''

llanos The Llanos (Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, sav ...

''. It also occurs in valleys and ravines in the nearby foothills. In elevation it ranges between in Colombia and in Venezuela.

Behavior

Feeding

The yellow-knobbed curassow forages in small family groups, or in combined ones of up to 15 birds in the dry season. Its primary foods are fruits and seeds with very small amounts of leaves, other plant parts, and insects. It feeds at all levels from the ground to the treetops.

Breeding

The yellow-knobbed curassow lays eggs during May and June, the early part of the rainy season. It appears to be

polygynous Polygyny (; from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); ) is the most common and accepted form of polygamy around the world, entailing the marriage of a man with several women. Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any ...

. It builds an oval nest of branches and lianas lined with leaves and grass and usually sites it in a tree and concealed by vines. The clutch size is two eggs.

Vocalization

Male yellow-knobbed curassows sing a "bomb-dropping" descending whistle, sometimes combined with a wing-clapping display or booming. The former is "4–10 rapid cracks of wings above the bird’s back, 'wapp!, wapp!, wapp!-wapp!-wapp!'". The booming is described as "uuumh...uhh".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the yellow-knobbed curassow as Near Threatened. It has a small population that is declining due to habitat loss and hunting.

Gallery

File:Crax daubentoni -Hamerton Zoo, Cambridgeshire, England -male-8a (1).jpg, Male at

Hamerton Zoo Park Hamerton Zoo Park is situated in Hamerton, near Sawtry, Huntingdonshire, England. Development Planning permission for change of use from agricultural land to a zoo was granted in 1988, with the park being opened on 15 June 1990 by local MP, the ...

, England File:Crax daubentoni -Philadelphia Zoo -female-8a-4c.jpg, Female at

Philadelphia Zoo The Philadelphia Zoo, located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, is the first true zoo in the United States. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, but its openin ...

, USA File:Yellow-knobbed Curassow SMTC.jpg, Female File:Yellow-knobbed Curassow RWD2.jpg, Female File:Yellow-knobbed Curassow RWD3.jpg, Female

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1267444

yellow-knobbed curassow The yellow-knobbed curassow (''Crax daubentoni'') is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela. Taxonomy and systematics The yellow-knobbed curassow was formerly c ...

Birds of Venezuela

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot