Greater Roadrunner

About the Greater Roadrunner

The greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) is a long-legged bird in the cuckoo family, Cuculidae, from the Aridoamerica region in the Southwestern United States and Mexico. The scientific name means "Californian earth-cuckoo". Along with the lesser roadrunner, it is one of two species in the genus Geococcyx. This roadrunner is also known as the chaparral cock, ground cuckoo, and snake killer.

Greater roadrunner fossils dating from the Holocene and Pleistocene have been found in California,Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, in the United States, and the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The oldest known fossil comes from a cave in New Mexico, estimated at an age of 33,500 years. In the La Brea Tar Pits, fragments from 25 greater roadrunner fossils have been found. Several other fossils are also known from Santa Barbara and Kern Counties, as well as Northern Mexico.

Prehistoric remains indicate that until 8,000 years ago, the greater roadrunner was found in sparse forests rather than scrubby deserts; only later did it adapt to arid environments. Due to this, along with human transformation of the landscape, it has recently started to move northeast of its... Wikipedia →