Birds
Common Potoo
Nyctibius griseus · also called common potoo, grey potoo, poor-me-one, ghost bird
The common potoo is a bird that has turned invisibility into a lifestyle. By day it becomes part of a dead branch — bolt upright, bill to the sky, eyes shut but still watching through slits in its eyelids. By night it hawks insects from a perch and sings a falling wail that has haunted Latin American folklore for centuries.
Overview
Common potoos live in forest, savanna, and forest edge from Nicaragua to northern Argentina. They are nocturnal insect hunters, making short sallying flights from a favourite perch to snap up beetles, moths, and katydids, then returning to the same spot.
The stump
By day the potoo perches on a broken stub or post, stretches vertical, raises its bill, hides its feet, and freezes. Its bark-patterned grey plumage and posture turn it into a continuation of the dead wood, and it will hold the pose for hours while people pass within a metre.
Watching with closed eyes
The potoo’s upper eyelids have small notches. With its eyes fully shut for camouflage, it still detects motion and light through these slits — so it can track an approaching threat without opening its large, disguise-breaking eyes.
The ghost bird
On moonlit nights it sings a slow, descending, wailing phrase that fades away. Heard from dark forest, it sounds like sobbing, and across Latin America it is tied to stories of grieving spirits — the “poor-me-one.” It lays one egg on the bare top of a broken stump, with no nest.
Status
The common potoo is Least Concern, common and widespread, and fairly tolerant of edges and plantations.
Common Potoo: common questions
Why has the potoo become an internet meme?
Photographs of potoos tend to capture two very different birds. At rest and camouflaged, a potoo is a sleek, sombre extension of a branch. But when it opens its enormous mouth — to call, yawn, or threaten — or turns its huge round eyes toward the camera, its face looks cartoonishly startled, with a gigantic gape and a wide-eyed stare. That contrast, plus the fact that the bird will hold a pose for a long time and let photographers get close, has made the "surprised potoo" a recurring image online. The birds themselves are simply doing what night birds with big light-gathering eyes and wide insect-catching mouths do.
How does a potoo hide so well?
It combines pattern, posture, and stillness. The plumage is a finely vermiculated grey, brown, and black that matches lichen-covered dead wood. During the day the potoo chooses a perch on the end of a broken stub, stump, or post, aligns its body with the wood, points its bill up, tucks its feet out of sight, and becomes completely motionless, often for hours. Predators and birdwatchers pass within a metre without registering it. If disturbed further it may sway very slightly, like a branch in the breeze, rather than fly. Only if a threat gets too close does it finally drop off the perch and glide away on silent, owl-like wings.
What are the slits in a potoo's eyelids for?
The potoo has small notches or gaps in its upper eyelids, and when it closes its eyes during its daytime freeze it can still see movement and changes in light through these slits. This solves a real problem for a camouflaged animal — open, staring eyes are one of the strongest cues a predator uses to spot hidden prey, and a large dark eye would break the "dead branch" illusion. By sealing its eyes but keeping a peephole, the potoo can monitor an approaching hawk or human and decide whether to keep bluffing or flee, all without giving itself away.
Why is the potoo called a "ghost bird"?
Because of its voice and its habits. On clear, moonlit nights the common potoo gives a slow, mournful song of five or so notes that fall steadily in pitch and fade away, a sound often described as sobbing or wailing. Heard drifting out of a dark forest by someone who cannot see the bird, it is genuinely eerie, and across Latin America it has attracted names and stories connecting it to the crying of an abandoned lover, a grieving mother, or a soul that cannot rest. Combined with the bird's ability to vanish against a branch by day, this gave it a supernatural reputation long before it was a photograph.