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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Cock-tailed Tyrant

Alectrurus tricolor

• rare
• 30 km/h
• Vulnerable

The male's tail is a bizarre horizontal fan used only for display flights over grassland. Tricolor: black, white, and gray.

Population

2,000-8,000 mature individuals, decreasing

Habitat

Large, tall, open, undisturbed native grasslands, including campo, cerrado, and humid savanna, typically below 1,100-1,300 m elevation; avoids frequently burned areas and areas dominated by invasive/exotic grasses

Fun fact

The male Cock-tailed Tyrant has a dramatically elongated, upward-curving black tail with feathers up to about 7 cm long (roughly as long as its body) that he raises like a rooster's tail during display flights over the grassland.

Range

Disjunct South American distribution: north and eastern Bolivia (especially Beni), and a separate population from eastern Paraguay into Brazil (southern/central-western Mato Grosso east to Minas Gerais and south to Paraná); formerly northeastern Argentina, not recorded since 1979 and now presumed/possibly extinct there

Diet

Arthropods (mainly insects), taken from vegetation while perched, while hovering, or by hawking prey in mid-air

Size

0.12 m