The bare-faced curassow (''Crax fasciolata'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Cracidae The chachalacas, guans, and curassows are birds in the Family (biology), family Cracidae. These are species of tropical and subtropical Central America, Central and South America. The range of one species, the plain chachalaca, just reaches south ...

, the

chachalaca Chachalacas are galliform birds from the genus ''Ortalis''. These birds are found in wooded habitats in the far southern United States (Texas), Mexico, and Central and South America. They are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly ...

guan Guan may refer to: * Guan (bird), any of a number of bird species of the family Cracidae, of South and Central America * Guan (surname), several similar Chinese surnames ** Guān, Chinese surname * Guan (state), ancient Chinese city-state * Guan ( ...

curassow Curassows are one of the three major groups of cracid birds. They comprise the largest-bodied species of the cracid family. Three of the four genera are restricted to tropical South America; a single species of ''Crax'' ranges north to Mexico. ...

s, etc. It is found in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

, and eastern

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

, and extreme northeast

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, in the

cerrado The Cerrado () is a vast ecoregion of Tropics, tropical savanna in central Brazil, being present in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piauí, Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Paraná ...

pantanal The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest Flooded grasslands and savannas, flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but i ...

, and the southeastern region of the

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are

subtropical or tropical dry forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

and

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Description TSMF is generally found in large ...

Taxonomy

There are three currently recognized

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

following the IOC, * ''C. f. fasciolata'' (Spix, 1825) – fasciated curassow – lowlands of

and northeast

* ''C. f. grayi'' ( Ogilvie-Grant, 1893) – eastern

* '' C. f. pinima'' ( Pelzeln, 1870) – northeastern

Description

The bare-faced curassow is a large bird reaching a length of . The sexes differ in appearance. The male has black upper parts faintly glossed with greenish-olive, with an unfeathered face with yellowish bare skin, a small black crest, and white underparts. The female, on the other hand, has a black head, throat, neck and upper mantle, and a black and white barred crest. The remainder of the upper parts are greenish-black barred with white or ochre. The black tail is tipped with white or ochre and the underparts are black with ochre barring on the breast, paling to a yellowish or ochre belly. The facial skin on females is blackish. Bare-faced curassow (Crax fasciolata) male head.JPG, Head of male

Pantanal The Pantanal () is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest Flooded grasslands and savannas, flooded grasslands. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but i ...

Bare-faced curassow (Crax fasciolata) female head.JPG, Head of female

Behaviour

The bare-faced curassow lives in moist, semi-deciduous and gallery forests, often near the fringes of the woodland. It mainly feeds on fruit, but seeds, flowers and small

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s are also eaten. Breeding takes place in the summer in the southern part of its range, with the

nests A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

being platforms of sticks in trees.

Status

The bare-faced curassow has a wide range and is fairly numerous in parts of its range; however, it is subject to hunting and to the destruction of its habitat and the total population is likely to be declining quite rapidly. The

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as " vulnerable".

References

External links

Bare-faced Curassow videos, photos and sounds
on the Internet Bird Collection * (for

) with RangeMap
Bare-faced Curassow photo gallery
VIRE
Photo-High Res--(Close-up)Photo-High Res
chandra.as.utexas.edu–''"Birds of Brazil"'' {{Taxonbar, from=Q1267247 bare-faced curassow bare-faced curassow Birds of the Cerrado Birds of the Pantanal Birds of Brazil Birds of Bolivia Birds of Paraguay bare-faced curassow Taxonomy articles created by Polbot