hoatzin

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hoat·zin

(wät-sēn′)

A crested bird (Opisthocomus hoazin) of tropical South America having brown and buff plumage and a blue face. Juveniles have claws on the first and second digits of the wings.

[American Spanish hoazín, from Nahuatl uatzin, pheasant or small game bird.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hoatzin

(həʊˈætsɪn) or

hoactzin

(Animals) a unique South American gallinaceous bird, Opisthocomus hoazin, with a brownish plumage, a very small crested head, and clawed wing digits in the young: family Opisthocomidae

[C17: from American Spanish, from Nahuatl uatzin pheasant]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ho•at•zin

(hoʊˈæt sɪn, ˈwɑt sɪn)

n.

a slender, crested gallinaceous bird, Opisthocomus hoatzin, of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, with young having a temporary claw on the wing for grasping branches.

[1655–65; « Nahuatl huāctzīn,huāhtzīn name for several henlike birds of the Valley of Mexico]

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Noun

hoatzin - crested ill-smelling South American bird whose young have claws on the first and second digits of the wings

hoactzin, Opisthocomus hoazin, stinkbird

gallinacean, gallinaceous bird - heavy-bodied largely ground-feeding domestic or game birds

genus Opisthocomus, Opisthocomus - type genus of the Opisthocomidae: hoatzins

References in periodicals archive ?

Also of note are intriguing stories about the brine shrimp-eating flamingos of the Atacama Desert, the bone-eating Lammergeiers of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, and the leaf-eating Hoatzins of the Amazon, to mention just a small sample on offer.

Birds in their habitats: Journeys with a naturalist

bandores banjoist Brahmins broadens confuted habitude halutzim hedonist hoatzins hordeins joinders pibrochs spheroid

Vicinal and nonvicinal heterograms

Two relatively widespread, although not species rich, families are represented at the South American sites, but not in Panama: Opisthocomidae (Hoatzins, Opisthocomus hoazin) and Psophiidae (screamers).

FOREST BIRD COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN CENTRAL PANAMA: INFLUENCE OF SPATIAL SCALE AND BIOGEOGRAPHY

Hoatzins: cooperative breeding in a folivorous neotropical bird, p.

A Review of Ecological Determinants of Territoriality within Vertebrate Species

Narrow channels are filled with the sounds of a crowd of whistling sun bitterns and ducks and of hoatzins, a partridge-like bird, sheltered in overhanging branches, while darting spectacled caymans and shad splash ahead of the penero.

Current Challenges on the Orinoco

But hoatzins have an unusually big crop (food-storage pouch) and esophagus (tube leading from the mouth to the stomach), explains Alejandro Grajal, an ornithologist (bird scientist).

Bird eats like a cow!

Scientists have disagreed most recently over whether hoatzins are closer to cuckoos or to galliforms such as pheasants, chickens, and turkeys.

DNA tests identify hoatzin's cousins

Seuss, turkey-like, claw-winged hoatzins vie for attention with azure gallinules; macaws, parrots, and troupials call out overhead.