Some Facts About El Quetzal
June 5th, 2010 by Marina K. Villatoro, under Travel and Leisure. No Comments
Who are they? Quetzals are beautiful and exotic birds known for their bright colors and long tails. It is considered one of the world’s most beautiful birds.
Color: The Female has dark green fathers and a red belly and the male is unmistakable. Its feathers are from a vibrant green with its distinctive long tail feathers. There is also their amazingly beautiful scarlet belly and the white lower tail surface.
Food: Quetzals are considered specialized fruit-eaters, but they also like to mix their diet with insects and small frogs.
Growth: Males can be a meter long and can weigh up to half pound because of their tales. The body itself can measure 38 to 40.5 cm and the tail 61 cm.
Age: Quetzal can’t live in captivity, that’s why no one has been able to study how long they can live.
Habits: Studies have shown that Quetzals like to spend their days sitting on the forest canopy feeding themselves. Generally they live groups of 4 or 6 individuals or in couples.
Kids: Females can only have two eggs at once, these eggs are blue and measure 3 centimeters. Male and female take turns incubating the eggs. The time it takes them to come out of the shell is 17 to 18 days. Young quetzals can fly at about three weeks of age, but males do not begin to grow their long tail plumes for three years.
Mating: During mating season, male quetzals grow the twin tail feathers that characterize them and can grow up to one meter long. Females do not have long tails, but they do share the brilliant green and red coloring of their mates. The reproductive time is between March and June.
Importance: There are six different kinds of Quetzals and they are all endangered. These beautiful exotic birds because of all the illegal hunting and the destruction of their habitat are in the list of to be extinct animals unless things change.
Quick Fact: A Guatemalan legend says that when the Spaniards came there was a horrible fight between them and the Quiches (ancient town of Mayan natives), once it was over many quetzals landed on dead Mayan’s bodies, where they got stained in their blood and that’s where they got their red chests from.
Where can they be found? Quetzals can’t live outside of a tropical forest. They can be found in small areas from Chiapas, Mexico to Panama.
Marina K. Villatoro, lives in Central America – Costa Rica and Guatemala for the past decade. She has traveled all over these areas with her family and now she loves to organize vacations to Costa Rica and Guatemala. Contact her for advice and to plan your perfect trip!
