Red's Quiz thread

Quote from: Castor_Troy on October 06, 2009, 04:46:14 PM

the Canje Pheasant the national bird of Guyana!

so now I know how RED feels

well done sir. You are a man after my own heart

Guyana is a country with amazing biodiversity that has hosted famous naturalists like David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell. However, many, perhaps, take this aspect of Guyana for granted or have yet to fully experience Guyana. It took me ten years before I realized that the Mahaicony River, an hour from Georgetown, was such a great place for wildlife.

The natural world can be hidden from our eyes, even if it is in front of us every day. To be able to “see” nature more completely, we need to observe, know and understand it. Ultimately, we will only look after nature when it becomes meaningful and important to us. Finding out about nature is therefore both a fascinating learning experience and also potentially rewarding. I have come to realize that the world doesn’t value Guyana’s biodiversity enough, in part because we have kept it so well hidden!

Take for example the Hoatzin or Canje Pheasant – Guyana’s national bird.

I have been surprised to find out how many people have never seen a Canje Pheasant. The other day I decided to take a trip down to the Mahaicony to see if I could get to know the bird better. The Canje Pheasant is named after the Canje which is the major tributary of the Berbice. Opistochomus hoazin, as scientists know the bird, has other common names including stinking Hanna and stink bird. It can be found in the Berbice, Canje, Abary, Mahaica, Mahaicony and Takatu in Guyana; these birds are also found throughout the Amazon and Orinoco, particularly in black waters.

Travelers are more likely to hear its strange call – which has been likened to a “heavy smoker wheezing” – before they see the bird. The bird is handsome – a chestnut brown with striking red eyes and its regal crest. My first surprise was how easy it was to find the birds – they are everywhere in the Mahaicony particularly in the Moco Moco stands. During the mornings and evenings they are out, but during the heat of the day, they retreat back into the vegetation and are heard rather than seen.

The bird looks so different that our first sight triggered a discussion as to what was its closest relative. It looks like a chicken with a strange crest and the name Canje Pheasant reflects that many once thought it was more closely related to pheasants and other game birds. Today, the experts consider it to be most closely related to the cuckoos and anis but despite many DNA studies, this remains as one of the most difficult to place birds and it still gives headaches, or perhaps entertainment, to taxonomists trying to decide what other species it is related to.

On our trip up the Mahaicony, we found a chick sitting in the branches, left there by its parents who had flown back deeper into the vegetation. The chick would not move and completely disregarded our actions – perhaps to reduce the likelihood of getting eaten. The chicks will also climb through the trees using a claw on their wing, or if things get very dangerous, dive into the water. These wing claws can be seen in chicks and they are unique among birds; for many decades, the claws had biologists thinking that the hoatzin was closely related to reptiles and, particular, to ancestral birds like Archaeopteryx.

Another unusual thing about this bird is that it behaves like a cow! The hoatzin is the only bird with a large crop where it keeps bacteria which it uses to digest its leaf diet. These fermenting leaves make the bird smell bad giving rise to its names stink bird and stinking Hannah. Some argue that this also is one of the reasons why the bird is so common because no one wants to eat such a stinky bird.

This fascinating bird has been the focus of hundreds of popular articles as a tropical curiosity alongside anacondas and vampire bats. David Attenborough thought the hoatzin was an “extremely interesting creature” and captured it on film; today, the bird is a draw for visitors to Mahaica and Mahaicony.

The hoatzin is one of the countless fascinating animals found in Guyana. The world is undergoing rapid change as forests are lost and the climate changes. In 2007, the Government made an unprecedented offer of Guyana’s forests to help combat climate change and conserve biodiversity. What a country Guyana would be if it could maintain its amazing biodiversity and have the resources to ensure sustainable development for all Guyanese. The Canje Pheasant, Guyana’s national bird is astonishing; it becomes more remarkable the more we know about it. As we, and the world, learn and know more about Guyana’s biodiversity, so too will its value increase and hopefully one day we will be able to guarantee the future of tropical curiosities like the hoatzin while meeting the aspirations of Guyanese.