BIRD SPECIES

Turquoise-browed Motmot

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Eumomota superciliosa

The Turquoise-browed Motmot, also known as Torogoz, is a colorful, medium- sized bird of the motmot family, Momotidae.

It measures about 13 inches in length and weighs about 65 grams.

It has a mostly gray-blue body with a rufous back and belly. There is a bright blue strip above the eye and a blue- bordered black patch on the throat.

The flight feathers and upperside of the tail are blue. The tips of the tail feathers are shaped like rackets and the bare feather shafts are longer than in other motmots.

Although it is often said that motmots pluck the barbs off their tail to create the racketed shape, this is not true; the barbs are weakly attached and fall off due to abrasion with substrates and with routine preening.

CALL: A nasal, croaking and far- carrying.

Feed on insects such as butterflies, bees, dragonflies, beetles, and spiders, as well as small lizards and snakes. Sometimes, they may also eat some fruit.

Lives in fairly open habitats such as forest edge, gallery forest and scrubland.

It inhabits Central America from south- east Mexico (mostly the Yucatán Peninsula), to Costa Rica, where it is common and not considered threatened.

They nest in burrows which they excavate in an earth bank or sometimes in a quarry or fresh-water well.

Both male and female take part in excavating their burrow. It is a long tunnel that widens into a chamber with the nest.

The female lays 3 - 6 white eggs. Incubation period is around 3 weeks shared by both parents.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://animalia.bio