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 rainforest that is also known as the stink bird or the flying cow.
That altogether unflattering name is apt, as this bird is renowned for the stench it leaves behind.
What exactly makes the hoatzin so stinky is its unique digestive system. As its diet is almost exclusively made up of leaves, the hoatzin has numerous small “stomachs” that allow its food to go through a fermentation process, much like cows. Like the notoriously belch-prone bovines, the hoatzin produces rather foul-smelling methane and particularly fragrant droppings.
This penchant for leaves — and the need to digest them — means that the hoatzin spends much of its day perched in place, doing nothing much at all aside from digesting.
