Lesser Roadrunner

The lesser roadrunner (Geococcyx velox) is a slender, long-legged ground bird of the cuckoo family, Cuculidae, found in Mesoamerica. Its Latin name means swift earth-cuckoo, and it shares the genus Geococcyx with only one other species, the greater roadrunner, which it resembles in looks and habits but is smaller, with a shorter bill, a less streaked throat and chest and yellowish underparts. Adults are about 46 to 51 cm long, of which roughly half is tail, and weigh around 160 to 210 g. It lives in arid lowlands up to 3,000 m, in open ground with scrub and thorny bushes, and also adapts to cultivated fields. Its breeding range covers southwestern Mexico, the western side of the Sierra Madre Occidental, northern Central America and the northern Yucatan Peninsula. It spends most of its time running, at up to about 32 km/h, along roads and through open country, and basks in the morning sun with its wings drooped. It is an opportunistic feeder that takes seeds, fruit, small reptiles, frogs, grasshoppers and caterpillars, and it nests in low trees, thorn bushes or prickly pear cactus.