![]() The tail colors match with that of the rest of the body with the exception of white bars that can be seen going across the tail laterally. The feather colors vary with white, gray, black, and burgundy. Their wings are elliptical in shape and the tail is elongated. ![]() ![]() The eyes are also very large with a brown to yellow iris and has a short but broad beak. The great potoo has a large head in relation to its body. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. The genus name is from Ancient Greek nuktibios meaning "night-living", from nux "night" and bios "life". The great potoo is now one of the seven potoos placed in the genus Nyctibius that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot. He placed it with all the nightjar like species in the genus Caprimulgus and coined the binomial name Caprimulgus grandis. The great potoo was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. Possibly its most well known characteristic is its unique moaning growl that the great potoo vocalizes throughout the night, creating an unsettling atmosphere in the Neotropics with its nocturnal sounds. It preys on large insects and small vertebrates, which it captures in sallies from high perches. Much like owls, this species is nocturnal. ![]() The great potoo or grand potoo ( Nyctibius grandis) is the largest potoo species and is widely distributed in Central and South America. ![]()
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