Turquoise-browed Motmot

Turquoise-browed Motmot, Eumomota superciliosa.

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Coraciiformes Family: Momotidae

The Turquoise-browed Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa) also called Torogoz by the inhabitants of El Salvador and Guardabarranco in Nicaragua; is a colourful, medium-sized bird of the motmot family, Momotidae. It inhabits Central America from south-east Mexico (mostly the Yucatán Peninsula), to Costa Rica, where it is common and not considered threatened. It lives in fairly open habitats such as forest edge, gallery forest and scrubland. It is more conspicuous than other motmots, often perching in the open on wires and fences. From these perches it scans for prey, such as insects and small reptiles. White eggs (3-6) are laid in a long tunnel nest in an earth bank or sometimes in a quarry or fresh-water well.

Turquoise-browed Motmot in Costa Rican Pacific Dry Forests. The bird is approximately 34 cm long and weighs about 65 grams. It has a mostly green body with a rufous back and belly. There is a bright blue stripe above the eye and a blue-bordered black patch on the throat. The flight feathers and upperside of the tail are blue. The tips of the tail feathers are shaped like rackets and the bare feather shafts are longer than in other motmots. Although it is often said that motmots pluck the barbs off their tail to create the racketed shape, this is not true; the barbs are weakly attached and fall off due to abrasion with substrates and with routine preening.

Unlike most bird species, where only males express elaborate traits, the Turquoise-browed Motmot expresses the extraordinary racketed tail in both sexes. Research indicates that the tail has evolved to function differently for the sexes. Males apparently use their tail as a sexual signal, as males with longer tails have greater pairing success and reproductive success. In addition to this function, the tail is used by both sexes in a wag-display, whereby the tail is moved back-and-forth in a pendulous fashion. The wag-display is performed in a context unrelated to mating: both sexes perform the wag-display in the presence of a predator, and the display is thought to confer naturally selected benefits by communicating to the predator that it has been seen and that pursuit will not result in capture. This form of interspecific communication is referred to as a pursuit-deterrent signal.

The call is nasal, croaking and far-carrying.

The Turquoise-browed Motmot is a well-known bird in its range and has been chosen as the national bird of both El Salvador and Nicaragua. It has acquired a number of local names including guardabarranco ("ravine-guard") in Nicaragua, torogoz in El Salvador (based on its call) and pájaro reloj ("clock bird") in the Yucatán, based on its habit of wagging its tail like a pendulum. In Costa Rica it is known as Momoto Cejiceleste

The turquoise-browed Motmot is a beautifully colored medium sized bird that lives from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico down to Costa Rica. It is quite common in Central America. In fact El Salvador and Nicaragua made it their national bird. In Guatemala it can be seen in the departments of Alta Verapaz and Izabal.

1. It has some other names, in El Salvador it is called Torogoz and in Nicaragua it is called Guardabarranco.

2. It has a mostly green body. There is a bright blue stripe above the eye and a blue-bordered black patch on the throat. The flight feathers and upper side of the tail are blue.

3. Motmots are omnivorous. They eat small insects and reptiles but they might also eat fruits. They have even been seen eating poisonous frogs.

4. The bird is approximately 34 cm long and weighs about 65 grams.

5. It has been known that motmots live somewhere between 12 to 14 years.

6. Studies have shown that motmots move their tail back and forth in a wag-display when they detect predators and that the display is likely to communicate that the motmot is aware of the predator and is prepared to escape.

7. These birds lay 3 – 6 white eggs in a long tunnel nest in an earth bank or sometimes in a quarry or fresh-water well.

8. Males apparently use their tail as a sexual signal, males with longer tails have the best pairing and reproductive success.

9. The population appears to be stable, hence the species does is not on the Vulnerable lists. But numbers are declining fast.

10. It lives in fairly open habitats such as forest edge, gallery forest and scrubland.

It wasn't until February 1, 2007 that the Turquoise-browed Motmot was named by Stephen Colbert on the The Colbert Report as the fifth most poetic bird.