Hoatzin have some pretty weird traits, with mohican crests, blue facial skin, red eyes and large, fan-shaped tails, which they used to maintain balance while navigating dense vegetation.

ECUADORAN AMAZON — The hoatzin was one of the strangest birds I saw during our trip here last month. Even its name, pronounced wat-sin, sounds peculiar and like something that would arise from ...

If you were to conjure up the strangest, hodge-podge creation of a bird in your mind, it would likely not be nearly as strange as the hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazi), a species native to the Amazon ...

Scientists once thought the hoatzin – pronounced "ho-AT-zin" – traced its lineage to the Jurassic. And with its stubby wings, and spiky crest, it is certainly a dead ringer for that precursor ...

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Other taxonomists argued that the hoatzin is closely related to pheasants, cuckoos, pigeons, and a group of African birds called turacos. Alejandro Grajal, the director of Seattle’s Woodland ...

The clue is in the name “stinkbird.” That’s right, the hoatzin stinks. It doesn’t secrete anything particularly noxious, nor does it have special glands that coat its feathers in a ...

Studies of the oldest known fossils of Hoatzin ancestors have now shown that these birds existed around 34 million years ago in Europe. Paleornithologists at the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für ...

Why it's awesome: The hoatzin is often regarded as one of the world's strangest birds. Hatchlings are born with clawed wings — a rare, prehistoric trait — and adults give off a strong ...