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Trogons | Trogoniformes
Trogonachtigen | Trogones | Trogons
Forest birds with a compact body, a large head on a short neck and a long, straight-hanging tail with broad feathers squared off at the tip. The bill is short and wide with a large gape and finely serrated cutting edges, surrounded by bristles. The foot is heterodactyl: the first and second toes point backwards and the third and fourth forwards, an arrangement found in no other group of birds; the legs are small and weak and serve only for sitting upright and still. Movement is by flight, in short rapid sallies in which insects, caterpillars and small fruits are plucked from leaf or twig on the wing. The skin is notably thin and the feathers are so loosely set that they come away in tufts if the bird is seized. Breeding is in a cavity the bird gnaws out for itself in rotten wood, an arboreal termite nest or a wasp nest, without nest material, on a few round unmarked eggs. The order holds a single family with a tropical distribution across three continents. Eighteen species occur in the Andes and along the west coast, from the trogons of the Chocó and the Amazonian foothills to the quetzals of the cloud forest on the Andean slopes.
Families in this order
- Trogons | Trogonidae18 speciesEighteen species in two genera occur in this guide: the trogons and the quetzals. They live in almost every forest type, from the dry forest of the Tumbesian region and the wet lowland forest of the Chocó and the Amazonian foothills to the cloud forest of the Andean slopes, where the quetzals are most numerous. The body is compact, the head large and the neck short, and the bird sits upright and almost motionless for long periods on a branch in the mid-storey, turning only its head; often it is the series of hollow or barking calls that first betrays its presence. Insects and fruit are plucked from leaf or twig in a short fluttering sally. In the males head, breast and back are metallic green or blue-violet and the belly red or yellow; the sheen comes from the feather structure rather than pigment. The pattern on the underside of the tail differs between species and is a key identification feature. In male quetzals the upper tail coverts are elongated and reach to or beyond the tip of the tail. The nest is a cavity gnawed out in rotten wood, an arboreal termite nest or a wasp nest, with two or three unmarked eggs.