Great Tinamou

Great Tinamou
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Tinamiformes
Family:	Tinamidae
Subfamily:	Tinaminae
Genus:	Tinamus
Species:	T. major
Binomial name
Tinamus major (Gmelin, 1789)[2]
Sub-species
T. major percautus (Van Tyne, 1935)[2] T. major robustus (Sclater & Salvin,1868)[2] T. major fuscipennis (Salvadori, 1895)[2] T. major castaneiceps (Salvadori, 1895)[2] T. major brunniventris (Aldrich, 1937)[2] T. major saturatus (Griscom, 1929)[2] T. major latifrons (Salvadori, 1895)[2] T. major zuliensis (Osgood & Conover, 1929)[2] T. major major (Gmelin, 1789)[2] T. major olivascens (Conover, 1937)[2] T. major peruvianus (Bonaparte, 1856)[2] T. major serratus (Spix, 1825)[2]
Synonyms
Tetrao major[3]

The Great Tinamou Tinamus major, also called Mountain hen^[4] is a species of tinamou ground bird native to Central and South America. There are several subspecies, mostly differentiated by their coloration:

Description

Great Tinamou are approximately 44 cm (17 in) long, 1.1 kg (2.4 lb) in weight and size and shape of a small turkey. It ranges from light to dark olive-brown in color with a whitish throat and belly,^[4] flanks barred black, and undertail cinnamon. Crown and neck rufous, occipital crest and supercilium blackish. Its legs are blue-grey in color. All these features enable Great Tinamou to be well-camouflaged in the rainforest understory.

The Great Tinamou has a distinctive call, three short, tremulous, but powerful piping notes which can be heard in its rainforest habitat in the early evenings.^[4]

Taxonomy

All tinamou are from the family Tinamidae, and in the larger scheme are also Ratites. Unlike other Ratites, Tinamous can fly, although in general, they are not strong fliers. All ratites evolved from prehistoric flying birds, and Tinamous are the closest living relative of these birds.^[4]

There are twelve sub-species

• T. m. percautus occurs in southeastern Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula), Belize, and Petén department in Guatemala^[5].
• T. m. robustus occurs in the lowlands of southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Nicaragua^[5].
• T. m. fuscipennis occurs in northern Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and western Panama^[5].
• T. m. castaneiceps occurs in southwestern Costa Rica and western Panama^[5].
• T. m. brunniventris occurs in south central Panama^[5].
• T. m. saturatus occurs on Pacific slope of eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia^[5].
• T. m. latifrons occurs in southwestern Colombia and western Ecuador^[5].
• T. m. zuliensis occurs in northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela^[5].
• T. m. major occurs in eastern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and northeastern Brazil^[5].
• T. m. olivascens occurs in Brazilian Amazon^[5].
• T. m. peruvianus occurs in southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Bolivia, western Brazil, and eastern Peru^[5].
• T. m. serratus occurs in extreme southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil^[5]

Johann Friedrich Gmelin identified the Great Tinamou from a specimen located in Cayenne, French Guyana, in 1789.^[4]

Mating

The picture at the right is a polygynandrous species, and one that features exclusive male parental care. A female will mate with a male and lay an average of four eggs which he then incubates until hatching. He cares for the chicks for approximately 3 weeks before moving on to find another female. Meanwhile, the female has left clutches of eggs with other males. She may start nests with five or six males during each breeding season, leaving all parental care to the males. The breeding season is long, lasting from mid-winter to late summer. The eggs are large, shiny, and bright blue or violet in color, and the nests are usually rudimentary scrapings in the buttress roots of trees.^[4]

Except during mating, when a pair stay together until the eggs are laid, Great Tinamous are solitary and roam the dark understory alone, seeking seeds, fruit, and small animals such as insects, spiders, frogs and small lizards in the leaf litter. They are especially fond of Lauraceae, annonaceae, myrtaceae, sapotaceae.^[4]

A nest of eggs.

Habitat

Great Tinamou lives in subtropical and tropical forest such as rainforest, lowland evergreen forest, river-edge forest,^[3] swamp forest and cloud forest at altitudes from 300–1,500 m (1,000–4,900 ft). Unlike some other tinamous, the great tinamou, isn't as affected by forest fragmentation.^[1] Its nest can be found at the base of a tree.

Conservation

This species is widespread throughout its large range (6,600,000 km² (2,550,000 sq mi)),^[6] thus the Great Tinamou is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.^[1] They are hunted with no major effect on their population.^[4]

Footnotes

References

• American Ornithologists' Union (1998) [1983] "Tinamiformes: Tinamidae: Tinamous" (PDF) Check-list of North American Birds (7th ed.)Washington, D.C.: American Ornithologists' Union .p. 1 .ISBN 1-891276-00-X http://www.aou.org/checklist/north/pdf/AOUchecklistTin-Falcon.pdf 
• BirdLife International (2008). Tinamus major. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 11 May 2006.
• BirdLife International (2008(a)). "Great Tinamou - BirdLife Species Factsheet". Data Zone. http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=14&m=0. Retrieved 06 Feb 2009. 
• Brands, Sheila (Aug 14 2008). "Systema Naturae 2000 / Classification, Tinamus major". Project: The Taxonomicon. http://www.taxonomy.nl/Main/Classification/51356.htm. Retrieved Feb 04 2009. 
• Brennan, P. T. R. (2004). Techniques for studying the behavioral ecology of forest-dwelling tinamous (Tinamidae). Ornitologia Neotropical 15(Suppl.) 329-337.
• Clements, James (2007). The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World (6 ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978 0 8014 4501 9. 
• Davies, S.J.J.F. (2003). "Tinamous". in Hutchins, Michael. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. 8 Birds I Tinamous and Ratites to Hoatzins (2 ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. pp. 57–59, 61-62. ISBN 0 7876 5784 0. 
• Stiles & Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-8014-9600-4

External links

• Great Tinamou videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection
• BirdLife Species Factsheet
• IUCN Red List
• Stamps (for Honduras, Panama) with RangeMap
• Great Tinamou photo gallery VIREO

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