Birds
Great Potoo
Nyctibius grandis · also called great potoo
The great potoo is a metre-tall column of dead wood that turns out to be a bird. The largest of the potoos, it spends the day perched motionless on the end of a broken branch, head tipped back, eyes narrowed to slits, its mottled plumage matching the bark so precisely that people look right at it and see nothing. At night it comes alive to catch moths and bats — and to make a sound like a grieving ghost.
Overview
The great potoo lives in lowland and foothill forest from southern Mexico across tropical South America. It is 48–60 cm long, grey-brown and white with an intricately mottled pattern, an oversized head, a huge gape, a tiny bill, and very large dark eyes. It hunts large flying insects and small bats on sallies from a high perch.
The disguise
By day it perches upright on a snag, stretches its neck, points its bill at the sky, half-shuts its eyes, and freezes, becoming an apparent continuation of the dead wood. Small notches in its eyelids let it watch an approaching threat while its eyes look closed, so it can hold the pose until the last moment.
The voice
Its call is a deep, guttural growl or moan, given at night and carrying far. Because the bird is so rarely seen, that sound has been woven into folklore across its range as a lost soul or a grieving spirit.
No nest
The female lays a single egg in a shallow spot on a broad branch, with no nest, and both parents incubate it and shield the chick with their own camouflaged bodies.
Status
The great potoo is Least Concern, widespread at low density, though it depends on tall forest with suitable snags.
Great Potoo: common questions
How does the great potoo hide so well?
It combines three things. First, its plumage is a finely detailed pattern of greys, browns, and blacks that mimics the bark, lichen, and broken grain of dead wood. Second, it adopts a very specific posture — perched on the end of a snapped branch or a stump, it stretches upright, tips its head back so the bill points at the sky, compresses its feathers, and holds completely still, turning its outline into a smooth taper that reads as more branch. Third, it stays put, relying on stillness and refusing to flush even when an observer is close, so a person can look straight at a great potoo and see only a stub of wood.
Can a potoo really see with its eyes closed?
Not fully closed, but close to it. The great potoo, like other potoos, has small gaps or notches in the edges of its eyelids. When it narrows its eyes to slits to complete its daytime disguise, these gaps still let light and movement through, so the bird can monitor a predator or a curious human approaching its perch without opening its eyes and breaking the illusion. If the threat comes too close it will finally open its eyes wide, revealing a startled-looking face, and if pressed further it flushes.
What does the great potoo sound like, and why the folklore?
Its call is a low, rough, groaning growl, given at night, that can sound unsettlingly like a large animal in distress or a human moan carrying through dark forest. Because the bird itself is almost never seen, being motionless and camouflaged by day and a silhouette by night, people across Central and South America historically attached the sound to spirits — a weeping ghost, the soul of someone who died badly, or a warning of death. Similar stories attach to the smaller common potoo, whose call is a mournful descending series of notes.
Is the great potoo related to owls?
No. Potoos look owl-like because both are nocturnal birds with large eyes and cryptic plumage, but potoos are their own family, most closely related to nightjars, frogmouths, and oilbirds. Unlike owls, potoos do not have powerful grasping talons or the ability to fly silently; they hunt by sallying out from a perch to snatch flying insects and returning, more like a giant nightjar than a bird of prey.