Yacuma, home of the prehistoric Hoatzin

In our eagerness to find the answers to the origin of life, we have gone through great and important events, and the book “The Origin of Species” is one of them. Knowing that each one of the beings that inhabit this earth is connected by prehistoric ancestors makes us realize how linked we are with the ecosystem, and makes us place ourselves as one more piece of a great universe that has formed the lives of millions of species before us, and knowing that we are linked to each thing by something as small and infinite as DNA makes us all closer.

However, there is a species that opposes this important theory that unites us all.

The hoatzin, the prehistoric bird, the missing link.

This bird contrasts with the great theory that has guided the lives of great and important scientists.

It is a bird like no other, it is the only one in its classification and its anatomy. The way it is born, grows, and feeds leave us increasingly wanting to decipher its enigma.

Several specimens of these strange and prehistoric birds inhabit Yacuma, and they love to be photographed.

It is a ruminant; by feeding on the leaves of the trees where it spends its life, it needs the bacteria to lighten its weight and move; and its digestive system takes care of that by having bacteria that decompose its food.

However, it is not only the way they digest that impresses us. At birth, the little hoatzin chicks have a strange claw on their wings. They use it to hold on to the branches where they are born and they are released to fall into the rivers when they feel threatened, the mother will mislead the predators and cling to a nearby branch to be safe.

A certainly useful claw, it is interesting to know that it does not stay with them forever. Around 100 days after the hoatzin is born, the claw contracts from its wings, as if it had never been there.

They keep their wings, but they do not soar through the skies, they prefer to stay perched on the branches of the trees of the Amazon forest and only fly for short stretches between them to stay close to their nests.

Some would think that not flying far is not a useful factor when trying to ward off predators, but the hoatzin has a much more effective weapon and that is that it stinks. Yes, it smells very bad because the bacteria that decomposes its food smells like manure, therefore it is not very appetizing to its predators, nobody really wants them around, but don’t be sad, they like it.

Our favorite hoatzin is Kuma, he has been in Yacuma for 2 years and he loves to be photographed (from afar, of course). If you are a bird lover and you are looking for a very good shot of the prehistoric hoatzin, we will be delighted to show you around.