Species of the Week - Elegant Crested Tinamou

By Rachel Shaw | Posted on May 13, 2009

The elegant crested tinamou is a handsome representative of a family of partridge-like birds related to moas, kiwis, and emus.

Source: Photographer Vince Smith

This bird, like other tinamous, is a ground-dwelling animal, making its way through the shrubland of Argentina and Chile on swift legs.  Unlike their larger, later-evolved Ratite cousins,  tinamous are capable of clumsy flight.  In neither mode are these birds well-suited to sustained flight, as they lack endurance.  Indeed, tired tinamou have been observed stumbling or tripping as they attempt to flee a persistent predator.  They count on a quick burst of energy to make their escape, choosing speed over endurance.  Some species don’t bother with that, preferring to hunker down and hide.  Some even play dead.

The elegant crested tinamou prefers a habitat of scrub and shrubs, and an omnivorous diet of vegetation (from leaves to fruits and seeds) and insects.  Other tinamou are also omnivores, with some preferring fruit and berries, while others are large enough to devour frogs and mice.  Most tinamous prefer multiple mates, and it is the male who incubates the eggs in the nest he has built on the ground.  Their eggs are striking, being glossy and strongly colored, in a range that encompasses red, black, purple, brown and two shades of green.  Multiple hens may deposit eggs in a single male’s nest.

Tinamou, including the elegant crested tinamou featured here, are not uncommon.  Some game breeders even raise crested tinamou here in the United States, though apparently the young birds are a bit tricky to rear.  (They seem to have a knack for breaking their necks by running into things when panicked.)  It is probable that they were a common sight throughout most of the human history in the region; they appear in one Andean myth as a “chief” and representative of the sun, for example, and in another a tinamou causes a fox to trip and fall by startling him.  Several constellations and celestial features are named after them or parts of them, such as their eyes. 

Sources:
EOL
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia Britannica
The Huarochi Manuscript
Echoes of the Ancient Skies
Songs from the Sky
Vorompatra Lore
The Naturalist in La Plata