The third largest of the vultures of the Americas, the King Vulture has one of the strongest beaks out of all the American vultures and is able to open carcasses that the others cannot. While some of its food may be dead fish or lizards, other times it feeds on sloths, monkeys, or cattle. This is a vulture of the tropical lowland forests of Central and South America. Like other vultures, the King Vulture requires variety in its habitat so that it combines open areas where carrion can be found, isolated nest sites such as rock outcrops, and undisturbed stands of large trees for roosting. Although not considered threatened at this time, there are few data on population trends and some concern that the King Vulture may be declining as a result of habitat destruction.

A beautiful multicolored bird with flashy white cheeks, the White-cheeked Turaco is native to Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, where they inhabit higher elevation Podocarpus and juniper forests, as well as tall gallery trees and thick bush along watercourses at lower elevations. Here the turaco favors the fruits and berries of Podocarpus trees and junipers.

One of a number of species of toucans, popular for their enormous, colorful beaks, the Toco Toucan is the only one which is adapted to drier, more open habitats. These include a mosaic of natural forested, agricultural, and successional habitats, including gallery forests, palm groves, open woodlands, secondary forest, savanna and thorn-forest, plantations, and orchards. Toco Toucans use their bills to feed on a variety of fruits and insects, but are also well-known for preying on the eggs and nestlings of other bird species. This toucan nests in hollow trees. While many bird species in tropical South America are threatened by the conversion of natural forests to agriculture, the Toco Toucan is more flexible in its habitat requirements and is not currently of conservation concern.

The Curl-crested Aracari is an eye-catching small toucan found in lowland forests in parts of Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia. It is very colorful, with bright yellow, red, and green feathers and a multi-colored bill. Its most distinctive feature is the glossy black curlicue feathers atop its head. They eat mostly fruits but occasionally will eat the eggs of other birds. This species is not globally threatened but is vulnerable to human hunting activities.

The Bearded Barbet derives its name from the distinctive bristles that sit at the base of its bill, which both males and females possess. This handsome bird, with bright red underbelly and glossy black feathers on its back, is native to the tropical habitats of western Africa. Bearded Barbets are often found in groups, moving from one fruiting tree to another and clipping fruits with their powerful bills. The Bearded Barbet is not globally threatened.

The Sunbittern is an unusual bird of forested streams of Central and South America. This species is perhaps best known for a characteristic display involving large “eyespots” in the plumage of their wings. Sunbitterns have a characteristic “Frontal Display” that they use when they are threatened.  The spread and tilt their wings forward, exposing two large eyespots.  The tail is lifted and fanned out to fill the gap between the wings. Overall, the posture dramatically increases the apparent size of the displaying bird while exposing the fake eyes.  Both sexes use the display, and young Sunbitterns practice the display in the nest when they are just 10 days old.

The Sunbittern is at home on both swift and rocky streams, and slower moving, sandy or silt-bottomed streams, where is stalks fish, amphibians, crustaceans and insects. and then captures them with a quick lunge. The Sunbittern is currently listed as a species of Least Concern.

Linnaeus’s Two-toed Sloths are expert climbers. When you visit the Tropical Rainforest, you may catch Wookiee hanging upside down high in the canopy, or moving slowly along branches and vines. They have two claws on their hands and three claws on their feet, all measuring about 4 inches in length, that help them to hang. Sloths only come down from the trees once every week or so to defecate. Sloths live life in the slow lane, moving about 0.2 miles per hour in the trees, and sleep upwards of 15 hours each day! Sloths are anything but lazy, though. All of this sleeping helps them to conserve energy—an important thing for an animal whose diet of leaves, shoots, and barks is not very nutritious. They have a large, multi-chambered stomach that can hold huge quantities of food. It can take up to a month for a sloth to digest one meal!

The Pied Imperial-Pigeon is a very large inhabitant of coastal forests, mangroves and coconut plantations, principally on islands in the Indo-Malayan region. This species travels in flocks at dusk and dawn and nests in colonies of up to tens of thousands of birds. They are among the most powerful and agile flyers in the bird world, and they have very large flight muscles. This has enabled them to colonize many different islands across expansive stretches of open water.

The Green-winged Dove, also called the Asian Emerald Dove or the Grey-capped Emerald Dove, is found in a wide range of forest types, including rainforests, mangroves, and bamboo forests, throughout Southeast Asia. It primarily eats seeds and fallen fruits on the forest floor, but occasionally eats insects including termites and snails, and can sometimes be found on farmyards feeding alongside pigs and domestic fowl. The Green-winged Dove is not globally threatened, but predation by rats and feral cats poses a danger.

Black-naped Fruit-Doves are colorful birds, common on the islands of Java, Bali, and Sulawesi. Males are a rainbow of colors, with a yellow throat patch, purplish wing tips, red undertail feathers, and a silvery head topped with a black cap. Females are almost entirely green. They forage for berries and fruits in pairs or small flocks, plucking fruits directly from the trees. Black-naped Fruit-Doves may eat as many as 36 different fruits, making this species ecologically important as a seed disperser. This species is not globally threatened.

The Beautiful Fruit-Dove is appropriately named! This dove has gorgeous coloring, from its purplish-red crown to its green wings and orange underbelly. The Beautiful Fruit-Dove is found in New Guinea, where it lives in all levels of primary and secondary forests, from understory to canopy. They are frugivorous (fruit-eating), and forage either alone or in pairs. The Beautiful Fruit-Dove is not globally threatened, and appears to be adaptable to human-altered habitats.

Pelicans are large, bulky waterbirds with webbed feet, short legs, and a remarkably long bill. The underside of their bills extends into a pouch that can hold 2-3 gallons of water at a time, which they use to trap fish. When hunting, they spot their prey from the air and plunge into the water head-first. After trapping the fish, they drain the water out the sides of the bill, and then swallow the fish whole. Brown Pelicans incubate their eggs with their feet, essentially standing on them to keep them warm.

Unfortunately, the use of the pesticide DDT caused Brown Pelican numbers to plummet during the 20th century. Much like the decline of the Bald Eagle, DDT thinned the pelicans’ egg shells, causing them to break during incubation. After DDT use was banned, Brown Pelican numbers slowly recovered and they were officially removed from the Federal Endangered Species list in 1985.