The Farting Punk
There lives a bird in the swamps of the Amazon Rainforest that is unlike any other you may have seen … or smelled. The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is a pheasant-sized bird that wouldn’t look out of place in Jurassic Park. Historically the Hoatzin has been placed in the game bird, waterfowl and cuckoo families, recent studies place it in the dove family.
Hoatzin chicks have unusual claws on their wings (a feature that is very rare amongst birds) which are used to climb around the tree canopy to escape danger. There are even stories of Hoatzin chicks swimming underwater to elude predators, impressive for a baby pigeon!!
The adult birds are infamously smelly. Like a cow they have a rumen (although theirs is actually formed from the crop). This allows the birds to eat vegetable matter which is very hard to digest, such as leaves. The bacteria in the crop ferment and produce nutrients that the Hoatzin can use … as well as nauseous gases. Whether this gas is actually used in defence hasn’t been studied, but local people don’t hunt the birds – claiming the birds taste and smell rancid.
so you’ve heard birds, seen birds … but don’t smell birds =)
