Wattled Curassow

The Wattled Curassow (Crax globulosa) is a member of the Cracidae family, the curassows, guans, and chachalacas.

Overview

The Wattled Curassow is rarely found in the wild, and classified as a vulnerable species due to unsustainable hunting and habitat destruction. It is 82-89 cm (c.32-35 inches) long, and weighs up to 2500 grams (del Hoyo 1994). Its range is in the western and southwestern Amazonas basin, essentially delimited by the Caquetá-Japurá, Solimões, Amazon and Madeira Rivers, and the 300 meter contour line towards the Andes (del Hoyo 1994, Pereira & Baker 2004)

It is the most ancient lineage of the southern Crax curassows. Its origins date back some 6-5.5 mya ago (Messinian, Late Miocene) when its ancestors became isolated in western Amazonia. Although a close relationship to the Red-billed Curassow has been proposed, the Wattled Curassow seems to be a quite basal lineage without particularly close relatives. The similarity with the Red-billed Curassow seems to be mostly due to the fact that these are the most ancient species of their lineage, retaining more common plesiomorphies.(Pereira & Baker 2004)

From captivity, hybrids with the quite distinct Blue-billed Curassow are known (del Hoyo 1994).

Range in southwestern Amazon Basin

The Wattled Curassow's range is in the southwestern Amazon Basin; most of the northern limit of its range is the Amazon River proper, and the northern river strip. In northern Peru where the Marañón River becomes the Amazon, the range continues upstream into Amazonian eastern Ecuador, the Caquetá-Japurá. The Marañón-Amazon is also the extreme southern border of Colombia, but it also occurs upstream in another region of the Colombia-Ecuador border.

To the eastern limit of its range, the Madeira River, upstream in Bolivia, the Wattled Curassow is found in most of northern Bolivia in a 700 km region surrounding the confluences to the Madeira's tributaries, four major rivers of northern Bolivia. For Brazil, the bird is only found in the wild, in Brazil's Amazonas state; its northeasternmost limit is the confluence regions along the Amazon River, Madeira, Rio Negro, and the Purus Rivers.

Gallery

References

• Database entry includes justification for why this species is vulnerable
• del Hoyo, Josep (1994): 48. Wattled Curassow. In: del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew & Sargatal, Jordi (editors) Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 2 (New World Vultures to Guineafowl): 361-362, Plate 34. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-15-6
• Pereira, Sérgio Luiz & Baker, Allan J. (2004): Vicariant speciation of curassows (Aves, Cracidae): a hypothesis based on mitochondrial DNA phylogeny. Auk 121(3): 682-694. [English with Spanish abstract] DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2004)121[0682:VSOCAC]2.0.CO;2 HTML abstract HTML fulltext without images

External links

• BirdLife Species Factsheet.
• Wattled Curassow videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• Wattled Curassow photo gallery VIREO
• Photo-High Res; Article pbase.com
• Photo-Medium Res; Article armonia-bo.org—"Wattled Curassow Program"--(at the Rio Negro-Amazon confluence)