[BIRDWG05] More information on the diet of Greater Roadrunner

[Michael Gochfeld]

The Roadrunner observations of predation on Painted Lady (wings beaten off)
and Pipevine Swallowtail (no wing beating) are very interesting.  In Brazil we
studied Smooth-billed Anis preying on butterflies on a river beach. Anis are
in the cuckoo family (like Roadrunners).  A group of Anis specialized on
butterflies during the whole mid-day period when butterflies were puddling on
the beach.  Anis ate butterflies whole (no wing-beating off for them).  They
also ate bees, occasionally even when being obviously stung.  The butterflies
were mostly Pierids and Purplewings (presumably not distasteful).  The Pierids
were clustered first in a group of about 700, and the Anis attacked the
cluster repeatedly until, over the course of a week there was no more
cluster.  Then they went after the solo Purplewings which were also very
abundant..

The citation to our paper is

Burger J and Gochfeld M.  Smooth-billed Ani (Crotophaga ani) predation on
butterflies inj Mato Grosso, Brazil: risk decreases with increased group
size.  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology  49:482-492 (2001).

Mike Gochfeld


 
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