APPEARANCE
Perhaps the Amazon's most improbable looking bird, the ungainly hoatzin holds a special place in
rainforest lore. The hoatzin is an evolutionary offshoot, so unusual that this one species is placed in a
family of its own, Opisthocomidae. (Compare for example about 360 species in the parrot family.) Recent
studies suggest that the hoatzin is most closely related to cuckoos, and perhaps the turacos found in
Africa.
The hoatzin has a relatively small neck and head with a pronounced loose crest of reddish-orange feathers.
Around its red eyes is a patch of bare skin, colored bright blue. About the size of a large chicken, the
roundish body bears dark green plumage above and pale tan below. The broad tail is tipped a pale
tan.
Locally called shansho, the hoatzin is also called "stinkbird" because of its foul smell.
The reek is derived from the symbiotic microbes that inhabit its gut to aid in digestion of its leafy food.
HABITAT AND DISTRIBUTION
The hoatzin ranges throughout Amazonia wherever there is suitable habitat—
thickly vegetated swamps, riverbanks and quiet lakes. It especially prefers areas where giant arums border
water bodies. They generally avoid swift-moving rivers.
FEEDING AND DIET
The hoatzin is exclusively vegetarian, and feeds on the leaves and shoots of plants that grow in swamps and
marshes. The bird keeps a substantial quantity of its food in its large crop at the beginning of the
digestive process. The weight hinders flight, so the hoatzin can appear somewhat clumsy, indeed comical, as
it flutters inelegantly from one tree to the next.
BREEDING
Hoatzins' natural caution is abandoned during breeding season, which peaks during the high water levels of
the rainy season. (The timing therefore varies across the region.) Groups of hoatzins collect in small
bands with little to no pair bonding as is so common among other birds. The nests are invariably built over
water, a loose bundle of sticks, placed 6 feet or higher among tree branches. The group participates in
incubating the eggs and in caring for hatchlings. The female lays two to five eggs, colored creamy pink and
spotted blue or brown. Incubation takes about four weeks. Young are fed regurgitated foliage from the
crop.
Upon hatching, the young lack down and take a long time to develop, growing two successive coats of down in
the process. The most remarkable thing about their development is the presence of a claw on each wing,
enabling them to move among vegetation with considerable freedom. These prove to be lifesavers. When the
chick is threatened, it flings itself out of the nest into water below. When the coast is clear, it swims
back to its nest tree and clambers back up to the nest using the wing claws, and its beak and feet. This
instinct, along with the claws, is lost by the time the chick is a few weeks old, when the plumage first
starts to form.
CONSERVATION
Hoatzins are not in immediate danger of extinction, and are locally common in many spots throughout
Amazonia. However, they are sensitive to habitat change, particularly drainage of wetlands and alteration
of watercourses for dams or navigation. Due to this bird's bad tasting flesh, natives do not hunt the
hoatzin.
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