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Lesser Potoo
The Lesser Potoo or Common Potoo (Nyctibius griseus), is a nocturnal bird which breeds in tropical Central and South America from Costa Rica to northern Argentina and northern Uruguay. The Northern Potoo (N. jamaicensis) was formerly classified as a subspecies of this species.
This potoo is a large near passerine bird related to the nightjars and frogmouths, but like other potoos it lacks the bristles around the mouth found in the true nightjars. It is 33-38cm long and pale greyish to brown, finely patterned with black and buff, camouflaged to look like a log; this is a safety measure to help protect it from predators, but its mode of perch is also a camouflage. It has large orange eyes.
The Lesser Potoo is a resident breeder in open woodlands and savannah. It avoids cooler montane regions, rarely occurring over 1,900 meters ASL even in the hottest parts of its range (Cuervo et al. 2003). The single lilac-spotted white egg is laid directly in a depression in a tree limb.
This nocturnal insectivore hunts from a perch like a shrike or flycatcher. During the day it perches upright on a tree stump, and is completely invisible, looking like part of the stump because it stays so completely still as it perches.
The Lesser Potoo can be located at night by the reflection of light from its eyes as it sits on a post, or by its haunting melancholic song, a BO-OU, BO-ou, bo-ou, bo-ou, bo-ou, bo-ou, bo-ou, bo-ou dropping in both pitch and volume.
References
Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
Cuervo, Andres M.; Stiles, F. Gary; Cadena, Carlos Daniel; Toro, Juan Lazaro & Londono, Gustavo A. (2003): New and noteworthy bird records from the northern sector of the Western Andes of Colombia. Bull. B. O. C. 123(1): 7-24. PDF fulltext
ffrench, Richard; O'Neill, John Patton & Eckelberry, Don R. (1991): A guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd edition). Comstock Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y.. ISBN 0-8014-9792-2
Hilty, Steven L. (2003): Birds of Venezuela. Christopher Helm, London. ISBN 0-7136-6418-5
External links
"Common Potoo" videos on the Internet Bird Collection
"Common Potoo" photo gallery VIREO
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Lesser Potoo
