Latest update October 20th, 2026 11:34 AM
Interesting Creatures… Cotinga
Kaieteur News – Cotinga is a genus of passerine birds belonging to the cotinga family, Cotingidae. It contains seven species that are found in tropical rainforest in South and Central America from southern Mexico to south-east Brazil. They feed mainly on fruit and forage high in trees.
Continga
They are 18–22 cm (7.1–8.7 in) long. The males have highly colourful plumage; bright blue with areas of purple. The blue colour is produced by air bubbles in the feathers which scatter light. Females are much duller than males and are mainly brown, often with pale feather edges giving them a scaled or speckled appearance.
The wings of the males make a whistling or rattling noise in flight. Deforestation is a threat to several members of this genus. The turquoise cotinga is classed as vulnerable by the IUCN and the banded cotinga is considered to be endangered.
The cotingas are a large family, Cotingidae, of suboscine passerine birds found in Central America and tropical South America. Cotingas are birds of forests or forest edges, that are primary frugivorous. They all have broad bills with hooked tips, rounded wings and strong legs. They range in size from 12–13 cm (4.7–5.1 in) of the fiery-throated fruit eater (Pipreola chlorolepidota) up to 48–51 cm (19–20 in) of the Amazonian umbrella bird (Cephalopterus ornatus).
Description
Cotingas vary widely in social structure. There is a roughly 50/50 divide in the family between species with biparental care and those in which the males play no part in raising the young. The purple-throated fruit crow lives in mixed-sex groups in which one female lays an egg and the others help provide insects to the chick.
In cotinga species where only the females care for the eggs and young, the males have striking courtship displays, often grouped together in leks. Such sexual selection results in the males of these species, including the Guianan cock-of-the-rock, being brightly coloured, or decorated with plumes or wattles, like the umbrella birds, with their umbrella-like crest and long throat wattles. Other lekking cotingids like the bellbirds and screaming piha have distinctive and far-carrying calls. In such canopy-dwelling genera as Carpodectes, Cotinga and Xipholena, males gather high in a single tree or in adjacent trees, but male cocks-of-the-rock, as befits their more terrestrial lives, give their elaborate displays in leks on the ground.
The females of both lekking and biparental species are duller than the males.
Breeding
Nests range from tiny to very large. Many species lay a single egg in a nest so flimsy that the egg can be seen from underneath. This may make the nests hard for predators to find. Fruit eaters build more solid cup nests, and the cocks-of-the-rock attach their mud nests to cliffs. The nests may be open cups or little platforms with loosely woven plant material, usually placed in a tree. The clutches comprise one to four eggs. Incubation typically takes 15 to 28 days. Fledging usually occurs at 28–33 days.
Habitat
Deserts, open woodlands, coastal mangroves and humid tropical forests are this species habitats. Cotingas face very serious threats from loss of their habitats. (Source: Wikipedia)
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