Scientific name:
Rupicola

Natural spread:
South American jungle

occurs the rock-cocks only in South America's tropical and subtropical jungle and lives in hilly here preferably and water-hands areas, approximately in the headwaters of the Orinoco and the Amazon. So, rock-cock or Guyana-cliff-bird (Rupicola rupicola) are the orange in Guyana, South-Venezuela and, to find in the area of the Rio Negro in Brazil, the red rock-cock or Andes-cliff-bird (Rupicola peruviana) in two subtypes in west-Venezuela, southwards along the Andes until Ecuador, Peru and North-Bolivia. Here, the birds live from fruits and insects.

Shape The rock-cocks are remarkable birds because of both its look and because of its behaviors. its feet are extraordinarily powerful, its shape penetrated. The masculine orange rock-cock, approximately 32-35 cm long (therefore pigeon-big), works brightly orange altogether. its wide, fan-shaped mop of hair originates from the eye-area and leans so far forward that it covers the beak almost completely. The black wings carry big white mirrors on the Handschwingen, the outside-flags construct threads long orange. The chocolate-brown tail runs out again orange on its end. The female has a smaller mop of hair and is olivgrau gloomily colored, tail and wings are brown, only the sub-wing-deck-feathers light-orange.

In the shape similarly, but the male of the red rock-cock seems somewhat bigger (35-38 cm long) above all because of the longer tail-feathers. A subtype (Rupicola peruviana aequatorialis), orange is deeply colored, the female orange-brown. The second subtype (R) becomes more frequent. p. sanguinolenta, described. Here, the plumage of the male is scarlet, that gloomily the female chestnut-red.

Reproduction During the Balzzeit, the rock-cocks gather on open places of the forest, that they free from Gezweig, or on rocks, in order to keep away there its common dances. Several males demonstrate the watching females one after the other certain figures, that consist of short steps or jumps, accompanied from tone-remarks typical for this behavior.

Preferably, the rock-cocks nest on elevated places in rocky terrain. The flat, bowl-shaped nest is built in crevices or on the bare rock out of clay and branches and is disguised with foliage from outside. The females hatch the two, brownish spotted eggs alone.

Endangering Is subject to the orange rock-cock or Guyana-cliff-bird (Rupicola rupicola) the protection through the Washingtoner Artenschutzübereinkommen.