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Greater Roadrunner — printable fact sheet
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Greater Roadrunner
Geococcyx californianus
Geococcyx californianus is a ground-dwelling cuckoo of the American Southwest, and almost everything the cartoon taught you is wrong: the real bird tops out around 32 km/h, well below a coyote's 60-plus, and it does not say "beep beep" - it coos, a descending series of dove-like…
Did you know?
- The Greater Roadrunner reduces its activity at night and can lower its body temperature to conserve energy, a rare adaptation among birds.
- The black skin patch on a roadrunner's back is a solar collector, and a bird sunning this way can save roughly half the energy it would otherwise spend rewarming from its nightly torpor. Roadrunners are true cuckoos, but they build their own nests and raise their own young rather than parasitising others. They can and do fly, in short low glides, but the flight muscles are small and they cannot sustain it - running is the primary gear.
What I learned
Draw the greater roadrunner
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