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A black male great curassow with a curly crest and a yellow knob on its bill walking on the forest floor.
Photo: lwolfartist, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Great Curassow

Crax rubra

A vulnerable fruit-eating forest bird of Mexico, Central America and northwestern South America.

🐓 Ground Birds
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About the Great Curassow

Great curassows live in humid evergreen forests, some dry forests and mangroves, from Mexico south through Central America to western Colombia, and very rarely western Ecuador. They mainly eat fruit, and now and then pick insects and small animals from leaves and the forest floor. They are usually seen alone, in pairs or in small groups.[1]

Quick facts

Scientific name
Crax rubra[1]
Diet
Mostly fruit, with some invertebrates and small vertebrates.[1]
Habitat
Humid evergreen forest, some seasonally dry forest, and mangroves.[1]
Where it lives
Mexico through Central America to western Colombia, and very rarely western Ecuador.[1]
Group life
Seen alone, in pairs or in small groups.[1]
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN Red List, assessed 2020). About 40,000 to 50,000 mature birds, decreasing.[2]

Fun facts

  • A separate kind of great curassow lives only on Cozumel Island, Mexico, where about 300 remain.[1]
  • Great curassows have been seen as high as 1,900 m (6,200 feet) in the mountains of Panama and Guatemala.[1]
  • In places where they aren't hunted, great curassows can live in forest that has grown back.[1]

Vocabulary

frugivore
An animal that eats mostly fruit.
evergreen forest
A forest whose trees keep their leaves all year.
fragmented
Broken into small, separated pieces.
subspecies
A group within a species that lives in a certain area and looks a little different from other groups.
vulnerable
A conservation label meaning a species faces a high risk of dying out in the wild.

See it in person

Sources

  1. [1] BirdLife International DataZone. “Great Curassow Crax rubra: species factsheet.” https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/great-curassow-crax-rubra (accessed 2026-10-02)
  2. [2] IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. “Crax rubra (Great Curassow).” https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22678521/178001922 (accessed 2026-10-02)

Facts last checked 2026-10-02.

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