Description: A medium, terrestrial bird with a thin neck and a relatively small head. The body and tail are egg-shaped with the legs directly beneath them. They have a long, slightly de-curved beak with a pointed tip and four toes. They have three toes at the front that they walk on and a small-reduced toe that is raised up the tarsus. Coat: Overall greyish darker towards the tail and bluer on the breast and mantel. The head is black with a pale stripe of speckled black and white, coming up from the neck to meet with the back corner of the eye. The throat is also speckled black and white with most white on the chin and less at the base. The chest and belly is yellowish with faint brown bands on the thighs and belly, this fades towards the vent which is pale orange and unbarred. The back is bluish grey with broken black bands starting in the middle back and continuing right onto the rump and tail, though the rump is darker grey and the tail feathers lack the blue hint altogether. The wings are grey with broken and in some places faded black bands. The bands are most pronounced on the tertials. The legs are blue grey and the beak black with a yellowish hint to the lower mandible; the irides are dark brown.
Size: 42.5-49cm total length.
Weight: Male: 1325-1863g, female: 1430-2080g.
Senses: They are good runners and would rather run from danger than fly. They cannot fly well as the wings and heart are weak and poorly adapted to such great energy expenditure. Prey and enemies are usually spotted using sight.
Habitat: Tropical and subtropical rain forests, up to 1900m. Also occupies dense secondary forests, gallery forests and cloud forests.
Range: Birds are known to hold territories where they have regular feeding and roost sites. Females are able to wander through male ranges and may not hold their own at anytime of the year. During the breeding season females visit several males to mate with each. A home range will generally include a body of fresh water so that the bird can drink regularly.
Distribution: Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Guyana.
Status: Not globally threatened. It is though normal for this species to occur at low densities. However it has become rare in some regions. Hunting for meat and deforestation are the two main threats to the current population.
Daily Rhythm: They are active through the day. During the night they roost in trees about 2-5m off the ground. Getting up onto such branches can be a challenge, as flying is not their strongest point. Birds usually spend some times before roosting, looking up into the trees to check for a clear flight path. Once they have found such a path of flight they make a noisy and labored flight up to their roost. When ever they can they will choose a slope to get to the branch from, as this means that they can make a short jump, or flight to the perch. They usually choose a thick branch where they can rest on their folded legs as they do not grip the branch with their feet. Birds generally use the same roost night after night.
Voice: When startled into fleeing they utter a harsh trill, perhaps to startle the possible predator. Both sexes call to mark their presence, females tend to have deeper call-notes than males and use different phrases and tones. Calling increases during the breeding season, when males begin to call more often with more intensity at each calling session. Males call chicks to them with a soft repeated call.
Enemies:
Prey: Mainly fruit, also seeds, insects, molluscs and some small invertebrates.
Food and Feeding: Food is normally taken from the ground, sometimes from plants that are at the tinmous height. Some observations have been made of timous leaping off the ground to snatch a piece of fruit or an insect, they can reach things up to meter off the ground in this way. Foraging involves walking about pecking at the ground. Every now and then they look up and check for predators. Small items are swallowed straight down (including small, live insects), but larger items are pecked until they are broken into smaller pieces (and large insects are killed and broken up first). Sometimes pebbles are swallowed to break down tough food in the gizzard.
Grouping: Solitary.
Breeding: January-March in Colombia, June in Venezuela. Males mate with one female and then incubate her eggs, whilst the females mate, lay and then move on to mate and lay with another male.
Gestation: The female lays the eggs in a short time after copulation, the male then incubates them.
Litter Size: 2-9 eggs per clutch.
Young Description: The eggs are greenish blue or turquoise. Juveniles are brownish above.
Nest: The nest is made on the ground in a slight depression. Males line the nest site with leaves, usually choosing the base of a large tree with protruding roots as the nest site.
Young Care: The female leaves her clutch shortly after laying and has no further contact with her young. The male incubates the eggs, he remains motionless while incubating, even when his life appears threatened. In the unusual event of a male being frightened off its nest, it will either fly away or move off noisily, performing a distraction display to draw the predators attention from the nest. Such a display may involve hopping along as though trying to take off but failing, the male may also perform this trick when he is leading chicks and danger threatens. The chicks hatch synchronously and within hours the male leaves the nest and, moving slowly for the chicks benefit, he calls his chicks after him. When they are threatened he will hide the chicks beneath his belly and wings until they are able to run for cover and he will then distract the predator. The chicks can feed themselves upon hatching, but the male will point them in the right direction and catch insects for them, he drops such items in front of them so that they can break them up and eat them themselves. The chicks will become independent after only 10-20 days but many die when they first leave the protection of their parent.
Sexual Maturity:
Longevity:

Geographical Variations:
Tinamus tao larensis
Distribution: Central Colombia, north west Venezuela.

Tinamus tao kleei
Distribution: South central Colombia and east Ecuador to east Bolivia and west Brazil.

Tinamus tao septentrionalis
Distribution: North east Venezuela and perhaps north west Guyana.

Tinamus tao tao
Distribution: North central Brazil.

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