Cloud-forest emerald that crowned Mesoamerican myth
Resplendent quetzals (Pharomachrus mocinno) haunt Central American and southern Mexican montane cloud forests. Males wear iridescent green, red bellies, and streaming coverts; IUCN lists the species Near Threatened mainly from habitat loss. Pablo de La Llave described it in 1832; two subspecies remain debated.
The Mexican naturalist Pablo de La Llave named the bird in 1832, honouring his compatriot Jose Mariano Mocino, who had joined a scientific expedition to Guatemala. It is one of five quetzals in the genus Pharomachrus and the biggest member of the trogon family, measuring 36 to 40 centimetres before counting the male's streamers. In the nominate race those streamers run from 31 to over 100 centimetres, with a median near 75, and the bird weighs about 210 grams. Scientists still argue whether the slightly smaller Costa Rican subspecies deserves full species rank.
Males glitter from green-gold to blue-violet depending on the light, with a crimson lower breast and belly, black inner wings and a white undertail, while long green upper tail coverts cloak the true tail. Females are drabber, with bronze-green heads, grey bellies and bills, and shorter tails. Quetzals live high in humid mountain forests between 900 and 3,200 metres, using the canopy and subcanopy and nesting in rotting trunks, stumps and old woodpecker holes.
They are fruit specialists, eating 41 to 43 kinds, especially wild avocados and other laurels, which they swallow whole before coughing up the pits, spreading the trees in the process; insects, frogs, lizards and snails round out the diet. Normally quiet and shy to avoid hawks, eagles and owls, they turn noisy when breeding, with a two-note whistle marking male territory and a separate mating call. Both parents incubate for 17 to 19 days, the male by day and the female by night, his folded tail poking from the hole like a sprig of fern. Emerald toucanets, brown jays, weasels and kinkajous raid nests.
The IUCN rates the species near threatened, estimating 20,000 to 49,999 birds, mostly declining as forest disappears. The quetzal was tied to the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl and is Guatemala's national animal, appearing on its flag and coat of arms and naming its currency.
Source: Resplendent quetzal
