There's a bird who lives in South America, mainly in Amazonas jungle, that is called hoatzin. Not Ho Chi Minh, as I tend to remember. It is different than any other bird in the world and similar to the fossil bird Archaeopteryx. Its chicks have dinosaurus-like claws on two of their wing digits, the thumb and the first finger. The chicks can use them to climb on trees to escape predators. (Hoatzins make their nests of sticks hanging over water when forests are flooding.) But if a predator still finds them, they fall to the water, escape by swimming under the surface and use their claws to climb back to their nests. Later, when they learn to fly, the claws atrophy. Hoatzin has a special digestive system so that it can use all the leaves it eats, fermenting them into cellulose. And because of that system it smells like manure, which is also the reason its older English name is stinkbird.
I am somehow deeply impressed by hoatzins.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti