Red-legged seriema
Cariama cristata
— Where the name comes from
Cariama comes from the Tupi siriema, meaning “erect crest”, the name the bird had in Brazil before it had a Latin one; cristata repeats it a second time. The song, a long modulated barking audible two kilometres away, is one of the characteristic sounds of the cerrado, and on Brazilian farms it is recognised the way a dog’s bark is.
— Facts
- Group
- Birds · Aves
- Order
- Seriemas
- Habitat
- Cerrado, shrubby savannah, pasture, open country
- Range
- Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina
- Size
- 70–90 cm, 1.2–1.5 kg
- Diet
- Snakes, lizards, insects, rodents, fruit
- Lifespan
- 20 years in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
It would rather run — at twenty-five kilometres an hour — than fly.
- 02
It kills snakes by beating them repeatedly against the ground.
- 03
It has a curved, raisable claw on the second toe, held up as it walks.
— What sets it apart
It is the last living relative of the terror birds. The phorusrhacids ruled South America for forty million years: flightless predators up to three metres tall, with a skull like a hatchet and the same raisable claw this species still carries on its second toe. Of that dynasty there remains an animal of a kilo and a half that kills snakes by clubbing them against the ground, and which Brazilian farmers keep in the henhouse for exactly that reason.
