Little boy: When I grow up, I want to be a psy—pch—psychologist.
Younger brother: Not me. When I grow up, I want to be a roadrunner. Beep beep ZIP bang!
~Warner Brothers cartoon
I was in Arizona last year, and I saw my first roadrunner. It didn't look anything like the one being chased by Wile E. Coyote, and yet, for someone brought up on the Warner Brothers cartoon and eager to see a live specimen, it was instantly recognizable. Roadrunners are close to a foot high, have long pointy beaks, distinctive head crests, and white-tipped tails almost as long as their bodies, which they carry at a jaunty, upturned angle. Although roadrunners can fly for short distances, they spend most of their time on the ground, walking or running (up to seventeen miles per hour). That's where I saw this one; it was walking along by the side of the road, amid the dry brush and agave.
The roadrunner, or Geococcyx californianus, is a member of the cuckoo family—a ground cuckoo. Also known as Chaparral Cocks, roadrunners weigh 8-24 oz. and can be up to 24" long from beak to tail tip. Their diet consists mainly of insects, rodents, other birds, lizards, and snakes—the roadrunner is one of the few animals quick enough to capture a hummingbird in mid-flight, or to catch a rattlesnake:
Using its wings like a matador's cape, it snaps up a coiled rattlesnake by the tail, cracks it like a whip and repeatedly slams its head against the ground until dead. It then swallows its prey whole, but is often unable to swallow the entire length at one time. This does not stop the Roadrunner from its normal routine. It will continue to meander about with the snake dangling from its mouth, consuming another inch or two as the snake slowly digests.
Roadrunners are the state bird of New Mexico; they are found throughout the Southwestern United States, throughout the Chihuahuan, Mojave, Sonoran, and southern Great Basin deserts. They inhabit rolling, open, or flat terrain. Being carnivores, they get a good deal of the moisture they need from their prey; they also reabsorb water from their feces before excretion.
The way to a female roadrunner's heart is through her stomach; in springtime, the male roadrunner will offer the female food as an inducement to mate. While both parents collect the sticks necessary for nest building, it is the female who actually builds the nest in the shelter of a small tree, brush, or cactus. Two to twelve eggs are laid over a three day period, and it is just as likely for the male to stay on the nest as it is for the female, for the 18-20 days that it takes until the eggs hatch. The first 3-4 chicks hatched are the most likely to survive; they crowd the others out, and later-born runts are occasionally eaten by the parents. The chicks only stay with their parents for a week or two before striking out on their own.
Maybe on my next trip out west I'll see a jackalope . . .
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Source: A. R. Royo, The Roadrunner, http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/sep/papr/road.html , 5/2/02