Why are musk pheasants called stinky birds ?

A very small number of birds feed exclusively on chewing plants. Because the plant is too heavy and low in energy, it is not easy to digest, and it is not an ideal fuel for flying. But in South America's river wetlands, there is a strange musk pheasant (opisthocomushoazjn) that has a sac like a cow's stomach to digest leaves.

The musk pheasant's sac is massive, 50 times larger than its stomach and weighs about one-third of its body weight. Unlike most birds, the musk pheasant's sac does a lot of the heavy lifting of digestion than just storing food. Like the forestomach of a cow, the musk pheasant's sac is filled with bacteria and enzymes that digest the cellulose in the leaves.

Surprisingly, it can digest 70% of the fiber in its food, but like cows, it takes a lot of time. Musk pheasants take two days to digest after a single meal, making them the slowest of birds.

Musk pheasants also have the problem of eating like cows and emitting a foul smell, which is why musk pheasants are called "stinky birds". The fertilizer-like smell is produced by the fermentation of fatty acids in the sacs, which also keeps most of them out of the human food chain, even though their eggs are edible. The intrepid American ornithologist William Bieber, who cooked the musk pheasant and ate its meat in 1909, claimed that the musk pheasant's meat was clean and delicious.

Recently, microbiologists have studied the bacteria in the musk pheasant sac because of its ability to dissolve the toxicity of poisonous leaves in food. If cattle and sheep had this trait, then they would have a wider range of food and greater benefits for humans.

Musk pheasants are social birds, forming flocks of 5 to 15 individuals, about the size and clumsiness of chickens. Their weight makes them less good at flying. They spend three-quarters of their day resting, feathering up sunlight and digesting toxic breakfasts.

They look more primitive, with fluffy feathers of russet and light brown, bright blue faces, bright red eyes, long eyelashes, and long, pointed crown feathers on their heads. Musk pheasants are also very noisy birds, and they make constant purring, snoring, and hissing sounds.

What kind of bird is a musk pheasant? Taxonomists still do not agree that even genetic analysis cannot classify them into any of the living bird groups. For quite a long time they were classified as pheasants (the Aztecs called them game birds), later cuckoos, and later pigeons.

Just like the aardvark in mammals, most current references to the musk pheasant list it as a single species of the order Musk Pheasant, which is characterized by long hairs on the back, referring to the large crest of the musk pheasant.

The young musk pheasant has the same characteristics as the first bird fossil, Archaeopteryx: it has two claws on both of its forelimbs. If disturbed, the three-day-old chicks jump into the water and crawl back to the nest with their two claws to catch a branch, like a baby monkey.

The claws of the forelimbs are a primitive feature and a peculiar adaptation to living in a wetland environment. As the young grow, the claws disappear.

Musk pheasant: With long claws on its wings, it can be called a "living fossil" among birds, but it is annoying because of its body odor.

Taxonomists still do not agree that even genetic analysis cannot classify musk pheasants as any of the living bird species. For a long time they were classified as pheasants (the Aztecs called them game birds), later to cuckoos, and then to hoists. Just like the aardvark in mammals, most current references on the musk pheasant list list it as a single species of the order Musk Pheasant, which is characterized by a long hair on the back and a large crest of the musk pheasant.