UMBRELLABIRD

UMBRELLABIRDS are crow-sized birds that reside in the forests of South America. The bare-necked umbrellabird (Cephalopterus glabricollis) found in Panama and Costa Rica, the Colombian and Ecuadorian long-wattled umbrellabird (Cephalopterus penduliger) found in Colombia and Ecuador, and the Amazonian umbrellabird (Cephalopterus ornatus) found in Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and northern Bolivia.

The most well-known is the Amazonian umbrellabird, which is mostly black with a steel blue gloss on a big tuft of feathers that create a crest on the head and a large pendent lappet of feathers on the throat. Both sexes are similar, however the female is slightly smaller. They perform an unusual display in which the males stretch their umbrella-like crests and the glossy lappet on the breast dilates and waves. An open cup of sticks in a tree was one of the few nests found, and it housed a single egg that was fostered by the female alone. CLASS: Aves, FAMILY: Cotingidae, ORDER:Passeriformes, FAMILY: Cotingidae