Greater Roadrunner
Roadrunners are known by various names, including chaparral cock, paisano, and snake-killer. Enshrined in the folklore of native peoples, these terrestrial members of the cuckoo family are renowned for their prowess as predators, and admired for their superb adaptation to arid and semi-arid habitats. In the heat of the day, roadrunners reduce their activity and rest in shade, losing heat by panting or by raising wings and feathers to expose skin to cooling winds. To conserve water, they can excrete salt from their nasal glands. In winter they take shelter from the wind and cold by roosting in trees or among rocks at night. They sunbathe in the mornings, exposing dark skin beneath the back feathers.

Roadrunners frequently use cattle paths or dry streambeds as pathways to and from the nest. The nest is a shallow construction of thorny twigs and grass stems, about a foot in diameter. It is lined with leaves, fine grass, and feathers. The nest is usually located in an isolated thicket of small trees or shrubs, or in a cactus near open grassy areas used for foraging and display.

To save energy, roadrunners reduce their core body temperature at night. The male, larger and fatter than his mate, maintains a normal body temperature while he incubates the eggs at night. Both parents incubate during the day. When first hatched, roadrunners are nearly naked with shiny black skin and sparse white hairs. There are typically three to six chicks per brood. Sometimes the parents succeed in raising two broods in a season. Young roadrunners begin to catch their own food on the ground, starting around three weeks of age.

To meet the demands of fast-growing chicks, the parents capture reptiles and large numbers of insects and other arthropods. Roadrunners readily prey on poisonous spiders and scorpions. They also hunt snakes and lizards, especially horned toads. In winter, when insects and reptiles are less active, roadrunners prey on rodents and small birds. They eat cactus fruit and seeds when necessary. When hunting, roadrunners first walk along rapidly to search for prey, then dash after their quarry. They run with heads lowered and tails sticking straight out. They can sustain speeds of up to twenty miles an hour for some distance.

In areas of heavy residential or agricultural development, roadrunners have been locally extirpated. In other regions, the range has expanded in response to land clearing and overgrazing, followed by the invasion of shrubby species. From the core range in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, the range of the Greater Roadrunner has expanded to the north and east. In the 1930s the species spread into eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, western Louisiana and northern California. By the late 1950s roadrunners had reached Missouri. Winter snow cover apparently limits the northern boundary of their range.
Greater Roadrunner Range Map

Description: Greater Roadrunners are 20" to 24" in length, with tail feathers accounting for about half of their length. They have a shaggy crest, often erected, and a pale blue ring of bare skin around the eye that extends to the rear, becoming reddish at the nape. The red may be hidden in nape feathers. The long heavy hooked bill and the legs are grayish-black. The legs are long and the feet large with two toes pointing forward and two to the rear. The wings are short and rounded and show a white crescent patch in flight. The crown and upperparts are dark gray brown, spotted and streaked with pale buff. The tail is blackish with white spots on the tips of the outer tail feathers. The face, throat and underparts are whitish with black and cinnamon stripes on the face, throat and upper breast.

Persecuted for presumed predation on quail, roadrunners were the target of state and federal bounty programs in the early twentieth century. The bounties ended when scientific studies showed that roadrunners rarely eat quail and instead prey mostly on insects and reptiles.


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