Saturday, February 22, 2014
Creature Feature #127: Cotinga
The Genus of birds known as "Cotinga" also fall within a Family of the same name, making writing about them a little confusing. For the purposes of this entry, I shall be dealing with the Genus Cotinga. These are Central and South American birds that live in rainforest or degraded forest areas and follow a fructivorous diet (fruit), foraging high in the canopy. There are seven species, all of which are bright - sometimes eye-watering - colours. Only the males are gaudy, the females are duller shades and speckled, which allows them camouflage as they sit on their nests. The bright blue of the male's colouration comes from the collection of air bubbles in his feathers, which scatter the light (according to wikipedia, that is). This fellow is known as a "Banded Continga".