Animalia Life

Polyborus plancus
SUBFAMILY
Polyborinae
TAXONOMY
Polyborus plancas J. F. Miller, 1777, Tierra del Fuego. About three or four extant subspecies.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Common caracara, Guadeloupe caracara; French: Caracara huppй; German: Schopfkarakara; Spanish: Caracara Carancho.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
19–23 in (49–59 cm); in Panama male 1.8 lb (835 g), female 2.1 lb (955 g); larger in Chile and Peru 2.5–3.5 lb (1,150–1,600 g). A distinctive heavy-beaked falconid with a laterally flattened head, black cap with slight crest, and a bare red face; longlegged and somewhat terrestrial. Mantle, rump, throat, and vent are white or buff and finely marked with black; rest of back is brown-black and finely marked with white or buff; breast is brown-black; tail is barred black and buff with black wide-barred tip. Juvenile is browner and more streaked. Races differ somewhat in size and color.
DISTRIBUTION
Central and South America from the southern United States (Texas to Arizona, and Florida) to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands.
HABITAT
Typically lowland open and semiopen country: grazing land, pasture, river edge. Also Patagonian river valleys, shrub steppe, and grassy foothills. Increasingly moving into uplands of Colombia and Ecuador.
BEHAVIOR
Gregarious, gather at carcasses. Outside the breeding season they roost communally in the tops of isolated trees. Quite vocal, with a loud raucous territorial call made in characteristic pose with head thrown far back. Some local movements, but largely sedentary.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Among the most opportunistic of raptors. Walks over ground and through shallow water in search of prey; arrives at carcasses before vultures. Typically feeds on carrion, road kills, and dead and dying fish and livestock. Occasional live prey includes turtles, iguanas, snakes, crabs, earthworms, caterpillars, and beetles. Raids nests of passerines and other caracaras, and egret and spoonbill colonies. Aggressive; steals prey from other caracaras and raptors; pursues pelicans until the pelicans regurgitate. Eats coconut flesh at harvest in Guyanan plantations.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Breeds as solitary pair over a prolonged season; occasionally two clutches in same year. Builds a large rough lined or unlined nest of sticks on top of cactus or palms, on dense tangles of tree branches, or on the ground. The usual clutch is two eggs; incubation is about a month. Fledglings remain with adults for perhaps three months.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened. Generally common and locally abundant. Some local persecution and population decreases where they are poisoned and shot for predation on lambs. habitat loss of farmland to citrus plantation threatens Florida population, but elsewhere conversion of forest to ranch land has helped species expand its
DISTRIBUTION
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SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
The caracara is the national bird of Mexico, a nod to Aztec legend.

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