Tinamou
Foods

Tinamous are opportunistic feeders and eat a wide range of foods, though each species varies in proportional dietary makeup. Tinamou genera can be roughly divided into three groups based on the vegetable component of their diets. Tinamus, Nothocercus and Crypturellus focus on fleshy fruit. Nothura, Nothoprocta and Eudromia, comprising open country birds, eat mainly seeds and other soft vegetative matter. High-altitude genera living in harsh environments, such as Tinamotis, will eat most of the plant, not just the succulent parts.

Most species eat a mixture of plant and animal products, though some are mainly herbivorous and others predominantly insectivorous or carnivorous. Diet may also vary seasonally; red-winged tinamous eat mostly animal food in the summer and plant matter in the winter. Chicks eat more insects than their parents, probably for their growth needs.

Consumed plant material includes fruit (either fallen or on the tree), seeds, green shoots, tender leaves, buds, flowers, tender stems, roots, and tubers. Much of the animal food consists of insects, including ants, termites, beetles, grasshoppers, hemiptera, and lepidopteran larvae, as well as gastropods, mollusks, worms, and small vertebrates, such as amphibians and reptiles. Larger species will eat small mammals.
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