Animalia Life
Psarocolius montezuma
TAXONOMY
Cacicus montezuma Lesson, 1830, Mexico.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
French: Cassique de Montezuma; German: Montezumastirnvogel;
Spanish: Chacarero de Montezuma, Oropйndola de
Moctezuma.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
15–20 in (38–50.5 cm); female 7–9 oz (198–254 g), male 12.5
oz–1.2 lb (353–528 g). Sexes similar in color. A large chestnut
oropendola with a black head, a bare blue cheek patch, a small
pink patch at the base of the lower bill, orange-tipped black
bill, and yellow lateral tail feathers.
DISTRIBUTION
Resident from southeastern Mexico south to central Panama.
HABITAT
Tropical lowland forests and secondary forests, to 3,300 ft
(1,000 m).
BEHAVIOR
During the breeding season they are highly colonial. Females
forage away from the colony in small groups. Males often feed
solitarily. Males have an elaborate courtship display: they bow
forward, pointing their bill downward, and fan their tail, while
uttering a characteristic vocalization.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Forage in trees; their diet is almost exclusively fruit.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Highly polygamous; successful males mate with several different
females. Females weave a long basket-like nest of grasses
and other fibers, which is suspended from the tips of branches
of a tree; nests are up to 47 in (120 cm) in length. Oropendolas
are highly colonial with over 60 nests in some colonies.
Nesting trees are characteristically tall trees that are away from
other trees (so that it is difficult for monkeys and other arboreal
predators to get to them). Generally two eggs are laid
January–May. Incubation about 15 days; young fledge about
30 days.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened. Montezuma oropendolas are locally common
on the Caribbean coast of Central America, but generally local
on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, northwestern Costa Rica,
and Panama.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.