Wattled Jacana

• It has reversed sex roles: the female is larger, defends the territory and keeps a harem of up to four or five males, each incubating his own clutch.
• The male incubates by holding two eggs under each wing against his breast, and carries the chicks the same way; with that load he cannot fly and has to walk them to safety.
• A study in Panama found that the male was the sole incubator in all 515 clutches observed and the sole carer of the chicks in 97% of cases.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Freshwater wetlands with plenty of floating vegetation in South America east of the Andes, plus western Panama and Trinidad. It is the only jacana with such a wide range

Size at birth

The chicks are precocial: they leave the nest within hours and feed themselves almost at once

Sexual maturity

Between one and two years

Gestation / incubation

22-28 days of incubation, by the male alone

Litter / clutch size

4 brown eggs with black markings, laid in a floating nest built by the male

Sources consulted: IUCN Red List (evaluación de 2019) · Birds of the World / Cornell Lab · Emlen y Wrege 2004, Animal Behaviour (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) · Dallas World Aquarium · Animal Diversity Web

Best time: All year round; breeding usually coincides with the rainy season