Great Lizard Cuckoo

Great Lizard Cuckoo
In Pinar del Rio Province, Cuba
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Cuculiformes
Family:	Cuculidae
Genus:	Coccyzus
Species:	C. merlini
Binomial name
Coccyzus merlini D'Orbigny, 1839
Synonyms
Saurothera merlini

The Great Lizard Cuckoo (Coccyzus merlini) is a species of cuckoo in the Cuculidae family. The species is also known as the Cuban Lizard Cuckoo. It is found in The Bahamas (on Andros, Eleuthera and New Providence) and Cuba.

The Great Lizard Cuckoo is the largest of the lizard-cuckoos of the Caribbean and the largest species of Coccyzus cuckoo. It is 54 cm in length and weighs around 155 g. The plumage is similar to that of the other lizard-cuckoos, olive-brown backs, wings and crown, white throat and breast and chestnut belly with a deeply barred undertail. The eye has a patch of bare red skin around it, and the bill is long. The species feeds on lizards and insects such as locusts. Unlike some cuckoos it raises its own young, nesting in a saucer of twigs and laying two to three eggs.

Its natural habitats are tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, lowland and montane tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, and heavily degraded former forest.

References

• BirdLife International 2004. Saurothera merlini. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 24 July 2007.
• Payne R.B. (1997) "Family Cuculidae (Cuckoos)" in Handbook of the Birds of the World Volume 4; Sandgrouse to Cuckoos (eds del Hoyo J, Elliott A, Sargatal J) Lynx Edicions:Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-22-9
• Raffaele, Herbert; James Wiley, Orlando Garrido, Allan Keith & Janis Raffaele (2003) Birds of the West Indies, Christopher Helm, London.