Animal Facts - Turquoise Browed Mot Mot

By:


Traveling across Central America will surely be exciting if you could go on a nature trip in Guatemala. There are so many things to do there which include exploring wildlife and getting to know more about migratory birds such as the Mot Mot. If you are interested with the lifestyle of these birds and how they survive, this is the best time to spend your vacation and go a nature trip to get to see them in person. In the mean time, here are a few things that you may want to learn about this particular migratory bird.

The Turquoise-browed Mot Mot is a migratory bird very well-known in its range. It lives in fairly open habitats such as forest edge, gallery forest and scrub land. It inhabits Central America from south-east Mexico mostly the Yucatan Peninsula, to Costa Rica, where it is common and not considered threatened.

There is a bright blue stripe above the eye and a blue-bordered black patch on the throat. The flight feathers and upper side 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 Mot Mots.

Mot Mots eat small prey such as insects and lizards, and will also take fruit. In Costa Rica, these particular birds have been observed feeding on poison dart frogs. The bird is approximately 34 cm long and weighs about 65 grams. These guys have been known to live from 12 to 14 years. It has also been chosen as the national bird of both El Salvador and Nicaragua.

This migratory birds often move their tail back and forth in a wag-display that commonly draws attention to an otherwise hidden bird. Research indicates that Mot Mots perform the wag-display when they detect predators (based on studies on Turquoise-browed Mot Mot) and that the display is likely to communicate that the migratory bird is aware of the predator and is prepared to escape. Males apparently use their tail as a sexual signal, as males with longer tails have greater pairing success and reproductive success. White eggs (3-6) are laid in a long tunnel nest in an earth bank or sometimes in a quarry or fresh-water well.

The population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criteria (30% decline over ten years or three generations).


About the Author:
Marina K. Villatoro is an expat living with her family and traveling in Central America. If you like to see birds like the Mot Mot you might wanna visit Guatemala.



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


|

Loading...
Related....
Videos...

Recent UnCategorized Articles

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Loading

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.