Animalia Life

Crypturellus boucardi
TAXONOMY
Crypturellus boucardi Sclater, 1859, Oaxaca, Mexico. Two subspecies.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Boucard tinamu; French: Tinamu de Boucard; German: Graukehltinamu; Spanish: Tinamъ Pizarroso.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
10.8 in (27.5 cm), 1 lb (470 g). Pink to bright red legs; slaty breast, blackish head, and white throat. Back is blackish to chestnut. Female has barring on wings.
DISTRIBUTION
Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
HABITAT
Sea level to 6,000 ft (1,800 m), sometimes favors thick undergrowth. Also humid forest with little undergrowth at ground level. Sometimes common in regenerating plantations and is often in damp areas, especially near forest edges.
BEHAVIOR
The call has three notes and is lower than the calls of many tinamous. It may be given in long bouts, up to five hours in one case. Calls of individual males are recognizable, and mellower and less variable than female calls. It is solitary, remaining in its home range throughout the year.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Feeds on fruits and seeds, tossing leaves aside with its bill in its search. It takes insects, including ants and termites.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
In the breeding season it establishes a small territory in its home range, attracting two to four females to lay in a nest at the base of a tree or in thick vegetation. The male alone incubates; females leave to mate with another male.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
Hunted as a game bird and has become rare in some of its range, but is elsewhere still common.

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