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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOS-NAN |
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MOTMOT . According to Hernandez in his Historia avium Novae Hispaniae (p. 52), published at Rome in 1651, this is the Mexican name of a bird which he described well enough to leave no doubt as to what he meant; but the word being soon after printed Momot by Nieremberg
original
The motmots form the sub-family Momotinae, which with the Todinae (see Tom() form the family Momotidae of Coraciiform birds, the nearest allies being rollers (q.v.) and kingfishers (q.v.). In outward appearance the motmots have an undoubted resemblance to bee-eaters, but, though beautiful birds, various shades of blue and green predominating in their plumage, they do not exhibit such decided and brilliant colours; and, while the bee-eaters are only found in the Old World, the motmots are a purely Neotropical form, extending from southern Mexico
Paraguay
majority of species inhabit Central America. Their ordinary food is small reptiles and fruits, and insects caught on the wing. The nest of one species, as observed by Robert Owen, is at the end of a hole bored in the bank of a watercourse, and the eggs are pure white and glossy (Ibis
The Momotidae form but a small group, containing about six genera, of which the best known are: Momotus, Baryphthengus, Hylomanes, Eumomota, Aspatha and Prionorhynchus, and the number of species is very small. While all have a general resemblance in the serrated edges of the bill and many other characters, Momotus has the normal number of twelve rectrices, while the rest have only ten, which in Hylomanes have the ordinary configuration, but in adult examples of all the others the shaft
appearance , such as is afforded by certain humming-birds known as " racquet-tails " (see HUMMING-BIRD), kingfishers of the genus Tanysiptera (see KINGFISHER), and parrots of the group Prioniturus. C. Waterton (Wanderings, Journey 2, chap. iii.), mentioning the species M. brasiliensis by its native name " houtou," long ago asserted that this peculiarity was produced by the motmot itself nibbling off the barbs, and this extraordinary statement, though for a while doubted, has since been shown by O. Salvin (Prot. Zool. Society, 1873, pp. 429-433), on A. Bartlett's authority, to be perfectly true. (A. N.)End of Article: MOTMOT If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/MOS_NAN/MOTMOT.html"> MOTMOT </a> |
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