by Frances Stanford

Created on: March 04, 2010

The roadrunner is a bird found in just about all of the southwestern US and northern Mexico, especially in the desert areas. It is famous for its speed and its ability to catch and eat rattlesnakes. It is a black and white bird, with a crest on its head. It runs or walks, rather than flies, and can reach speeds of up to 17 miles an hour. It has a long tail that tends to curve upward at the end, which is slimmer than the part of the tail closest to the body. Its legs are long and stout and this often makes the bird seem taller than it actually is.

The typical size of the roadrunner is about one foot in length and two feet in height. When fully grown this bird weighs can weigh anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 pounds. The birds reach sexual maturity at age two or three and usually mate in the spring. The young hatch from eggs after an incubation period of about three weeks. Females lay between 2 and 12 eggs. These birds can live for about seven or eight years.

In addition to rattlesnakes, the diet of the roadrunner consists of lizards and insects. Because it is a meat-eater, it can eat a wide variety of moist foods. During the winter months when there are fewer animals in the desert regions, it relies on plant food for most of its diet. The body reabsorbs the water from the feces before it is excreted from the body. There is a gland in the nose that eliminates any excess salt from the food. In this way, the roadrunner is unique among birds because it does not eliminate salt through its urine.

Generally roadrunners are found in areas where the terrain is flat or rolling with only small smatterings of bush and scrub. Since the weather is hotter in these areas, the roadrunner is not usually very active during the hottest times of the day. In fact its activity in the heat decreases by about 50%.

It is amazing to watch a roadrunner attacking a rattlesnake. It unfolds its wings to cover the snake and then, using its feet, it takes the snake by the tail and slams it against a rock or the ground until it is dead. It also has the unusual ability to consume the rattlesnake whole by letting the snake dangle from its mouth and swallowing it a bit at a time.

In the springtime mating ritual, the male offers morsels of food to the female. Then he performs a dance in which he circles the female and after breeding, he gives her the food. Both the male and the female share the chore of collecting the small sticks needed to build a nest, but it is the female who actually completes the construction. Both parents incubate the eggs, but for the most part, this job is performed by the male roadrunner. When the young are born, they stay close to the parents for about two weeks before going off on their own.

Roadrunners do have enemies in the desert. Hawks and coyotes prey on the eggs and the young. The birds are also attacked by cats, racoons and skunks.

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