Blue-knobbed Curassow

About the Blue-knobbed Curassow

The blue-billed curassow (Crax alberti) is a species of bird in the family Cracidae, the chachalacas, guans, and curassows. It is endemic to Colombia. The blue-billed curassow is monotypic. However, it formerly included what is now the yellow-knobbed curassow (Crax daubentoni) as a subspecies. The holotype of putative species C. annulata has been determined to be a female blue-billed curassow.

The blue-billed curassow is 82.5 to 92.5 cm (2.7 to 3.0 ft) long and weighs 3.2 to 3.6 kg (7.1 to 7.9 lb). It is the only curassow with a blue cere and wattle, the latter found only on the male. Males are mostly black with a white vent and tail tip. Females are also mostly black but their lower belly and vent are rufous. They have fine white barring on the wings and tail, and a rare "barred" morph also has barring on the breast and belly. Both sexes have an erectile crest, the male's black and the female's black and white.

The blue-billed curassow is found only in northern Colombia. Its range used to stretch 106,700-square-kilometers; it now has a highly fragmented range, with small populations between La Guajira and... Wikipedia →